Liv Ullmann

Liv Ullmann
Liv Ullmann at Cannes in 2000.
Born	Liv Johanne Ullmann 16 December 1938 (1938-12-16) (age 70) Tokyo, Japan
Spouse(s)	Gappe Stang (1960-1965) Donald Richard Saunders (1985-1995)[1]

Liv Johanne Ullmann (born 16 December 1938) is a Norwegian actress and film director, as well as one of the muses of the Swedish director Ingmar Bergman. A winner of the Golden Globe, Ullmann has also been nominated for both the Palme d'Or and twice for the Academy Award and the BAFTA Award.

Early life

Ullmann was born in Tokyo, Japan, the daughter of Janna (née Lund) and Viggo Ullmann, an aircraft engineer who was working in Tokyo at the time.^[1] Ullmann grew up in Trondheim, Norway. She lived in Canada as a child during World War II. She resides in Miami, Florida.

Career

She played lead in nine films by Bergman. A psychological actress, she was the object of critical acclaim during the 1960s and 1970s (awards include three Best Actress prizes from the National Society of Film Critics, two from the National Board of Review, a threesome from the New York Film Critics Circle, and one Golden Globe as well as a LAFCA honor).

Her work with Bergman, especially in Scenes from a Marriage, turned her into a 1970s feminist and cultural icon, as well as one of the most respected actresses. In addition, her Nordic red-blond looks fit the 1970s vogue. Ullmann was nominated twice for an Academy Award (for The Emigrants and Face to Face), and published two autobiographies (Changing and Choices) while out of work in the late 1970s. At this time Ullmann appeared with Laurence Olivier in Richard Attenborough's A Bridge Too Far (1977).

Two of Ullmann's flops were musical adaptations of classic works. The film version of Lost Horizon was a critical and commercial disaster, and the Broadway production of I Remember Mama underwent numerous revisions during a long preview period, then closed after 108 performances.

Ullmann has been a film director (notably with Bergman drama Faithless) and reprised her role from Scenes from a Marriage in 2003's Saraband, Bergman's final telemovie. Faithless was close to being awarded the Golden Palm and Best Actress at Cannes Film Festival, but it and the female lead (Swedish actress Lena Endre) lost out to Dancer in the Dark and Björk's performance in it.

Ullmann chaired the jury of Cannes Film Festival in 2002. She introduced her daughter, Linn Ullmann, to the audience with the words: "Here comes the woman whom Ingmar Bergman loves the most".^{[citation needed]} Her daughter was about to receive the Prize of Honour on her famous father's behalf. In 2006 Ullmann gave up a dream of making a film based on Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen's play "A Doll's House". According to her^{[citation needed]}, the Norwegian Film Fund worked against her and writer Kjetil Bjørnstad. Australian actress Cate Blanchett and British actress Kate Winslet were intended for lead roles in the movie.^{[citation needed]}

Ullmann narrated the Canada/Norway co-produced animated short film The Danish Poet, which won the Academy Award for Animated Short Film at the 79th Academy Awards in 2007. She was the recipient of The International Center in New York's Award of Excellence.

Ullmann is currently directing actress Cate Blanchett in A Streetcar Named Desire (Play) at the Sydney Theatre Company in Australia. The play's premiere will be in September 2009 and conclude in October 2009, before the production is moved to the states.

Private life

In addition to Norwegian, Ullmann speaks Swedish, English and other European languages. She is a UNICEF goodwill ambassador^[2] and has traveled widely for the organization. She is also honorary chair of the Women's Refugee Commission. In 2005, King Harald V of Norway made Ullmann a Commander with Star of the Order of St Olav.^[3] In 2006, she received a Ph.D. honoris causa from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.^[4]

Ullmann has been married and divorced twice. Her first marriage was to Dr Hans Jacob Stang, a Norwegian psychiatrist, whom she divorced in 1965. According to her biographer, Ketil Bjørnstad, the marriage was marred by infidelities on both sides. In the 1980s, she married Boston real estate developer Donald Saunders, whom she divorced in 1995. Nevertheless, in 2007 the couple still lived together.^[5]

She has one child, Linn Ullmann, fathered by Ingmar Bergman according to her autobiography Changing in 1977 but born while Ullmann was married to Stang. Ullmann has two grandchildren, a boy and a girl, of her daughter's two marriages.

Filmography

As actress

As director

References

Further reading

• Robert Emmet Long, ed. (2006), Liv Ullmann: Interviews. University Press of Mississippi. ISBN 1-57806-823-1, 1-57806-824-X (paper). Collected interviews with Ullmann
• Liv Ullmann (1984), Choices. New York: Knopf. ISBN 0-394-53986-9. ISBN 978-0394539867. Autobiography
• David Outerbridge (1979), Without Makeup, Liv Ullmann: A Photo-Biography. New York: William Morrow. ISBN 0-68803441-1
• Liv Ullmann (1977), Changing. New York: Knopf. ISBN 0-394-41148-X. Autobiography

External links

• Liv Ullmann at the Internet Movie Database
• Liv Ullmann at the TCM Movie Database
• Liv Ullmann at the Internet Broadway Database
• The Guardian/NFT interview with Shane Danielson, January 23, 2001
• Peter Bradshaw review of Trolösa, The Guardian, February 9, 2001