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Mai Zetterling

 
Actor: Mai Zetterling
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  • Born: May 24, 1925 in Vasteras, Sweden
  • Died: Mar 17, 1994 in London, England, UK
  • Occupation: Actor, Director, Writer
  • Active: '40s-'60s, '80s
  • Major Genres: Drama
  • Career Highlights: Only Two Can Play, Knock on Wood, Hidden Agenda
  • First Major Screen Credit: Hets (1944)

Biography

Swedish-born Mai Zetterling found acting as an escape from an impoverished childhood, and after training at Stockholm's Royal Dramatic Theater School, she made her debut on stage and screen at the age of 16. Her movie career took over when she was cast as the teenage girl victimized by a sadistic teacher in Torment (1944), a picture directed by Alf Sjoberg that was scripted by Ingmar Bergman, which became a major success among critics all over the world. She went to England in 1946 to star in the drama Frieda, about the plight of a European immigrant living in England during the postwar period. She was then signed by the Rank Organisation which tried to turn her into a major star. Unfortunately, she came to England at a time when the film industry was in a period of upheaval and retrenchment, and her films -- which included Quartet (1948) and The Bad Lord Byron (1949) -- never really succeeded. After the failure of The Romantic Age, she began setting her sights elsewhere from Rank. The early '60s saw Zetterling appear opposite Peter Sellers in what was probably the most interesting of his late-British successes, Any Number Can Play. By that time, she was concentrating on directing as well as acting, having made the documentary The War Game, which won a prize at the 1963 Venice Film Festival. Her feature films Loving Couples and Night Games (the latter based on her own novel) established Zetterling as one of the most-respected women filmmakers of her generation, and the fact that her work frequently dealt with issues of special interest to women put her at the forefront of the feminist movement. She continued making occasional appearances as an actress into the 1990s, most notably an extremely popular turn as the grandmother in the Jim Henson-directed fantasy The Witches (1990). ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
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Wikipedia: Mai Zetterling
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Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Wikipedia
Mai Zetterling
Born Mai Elisabeth Zetterling
May 24, 1925
Västerås, Sweden
Died March 17, 1994 (aged 68)
London, England, UK
Occupation Actress, film director
Years active 1941–1993
Spouse(s) Tutte Lemkow (1944–1953) (divorced)
David Hughes (1958–1979) (divorced)

Mai Elisabeth Zetterling ([IPA: maɪ seteɭɪŋ]; May 24, 1925 – March 17, 1994)[1] was a Swedish actress and film director.

Contents

Early life

Zetterling was born in Västerås, Västmanland, Sweden to a working class family.[2] She started her career as an actress by the age of seventeen at Dramaten, the Swedish national theater. Her breakthrough came in the 1944 film Hets ("Torment"), written by Ingmar Bergman.

Career

Zetterling appeared in film productions spanning six decades from the 1940s to the 1990s. Her films as an actress included Quartet (1948), The Romantic Age (1949), Only Two Can Play (1962), and The Witches (1990), an adaptation of Roald Dahl's book. Her last film role was in the Swedish movie Morfars resa ("Grandpa's Journey") in 1993.

She began directing in the early 1960s, starting with political documentaries and a short film. Her first feature film was in 1964, Älskande par ("Loving Couples"), among several of her films controversial for their frank sexuality.

Filmography

A partial filmography as director:

Personal life

In 1985 she published an autobiography, All Those Tomorrows.[3] She died in London, England, from cancer on St. Patrick's Day in 1994, at the age of 68.

References

  1. ^ DEATHS - The Washington Post - HighBeam Research
  2. ^ Mai Zetterling, 68, Film Actress With a Second Career in Directing - New York Times
  3. ^ Mai Zetterling (1985). All Those Tomorrows. London: Cape. ISBN 0224018418.  New York: Grove, 1986. ISBN 039455602X.

External links

In Swedish


This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

 
 

 

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Actor. Copyright © 2009 All Media Guide, LLC. All rights reserved.  Read more
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