Playing nuns, saints and missionaries, she became the Hollywood
star everyone loved. "Bright, beautiful, pure as the driven snow." That's
the way the world saw Engrid Bergman until she was burnt at the stake
and buried by the press[1] in the scandal[2] that rocked
the 50's. Her epic story altered the shape of international fame. She
changed the world's ideas about what a woman could be. Engrid Bergman,
one of the most outstanding women of her time.
In 1915 in Stockholm, Frieda and Justus Bergman welcomed home
their beautiful baby daughter. They named her after[3] the Sweden's
two-year-old royal princess Engrid. Justus owned a film shop and many
cameras and taught his family how to pose for them. In 1918, he became
a single parent with his wife's sudden death from a stomach disorder.
Engrid was left motherless and melancholy[4].
"Yes, I was a very sad child, and very lonely and I think, the
way I saved myself was to invent the characters that I could talk to.
Because I was terribly shy and if I had all these imaginary characters
around me, you see, I could talk to them and they answered back, just
what I wanted them to say. And that is how I became an actress, not knowing
what I was doing was acting," Engrid said, "I didn't choose acting, it
chose me."
Her understanding of the art came at the royal dramatic theater
school where Greta Garbo had also taken her first steps toward a career
in a film. In 1934 while still in school, Engrid won her first movie role
in THE COUNT OF MOUNT'S BRIDGE. Four films followed, and critics raved
about[5] that young Miss Engrid Berman,"one must simply surrender
to her beauty and talent."