Ingrid Bergman brought a natural light to the screen that Hollywood had not seen before, and audiences trusted her for it.
Born on 29 August 1915 in Stockholm, she became a star in Swedish cinema before coming to Hollywood for Intermezzo (1939). Her fresh, unadorned style stood out in an age of glamour, and she soon became one of the most popular actresses in the world.
Casablanca (1942), Gaslight (1944) and Notorious (1946) made her a legend, and she won the Academy Award for Best Actress for Gaslight. After a controversial period in Europe, where she worked with Roberto Rossellini, she returned to Hollywood triumphantly with Anastasia (1956), winning a second Best Actress Oscar, and later won Best Supporting Actress for Murder on the Orient Express (1974).
She died on 29 August 1982 in London, on her sixty-seventh birthday. Bergman’s legacy is one of honesty: she acted without artifice, and that honesty still shines through her films.
Image: Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca, Wikimedia Commons, public domain. Credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bergman_%26_Bogart_Casablanca_still.jpg