Chandler - Ingrid: ingrid bergman, a personal biography

Bob Bender, George Cukor, Federico Fellini, Alfred Hitchcock, Robert Lantz, David Rosenthal, Isabella Rossellini, and Roberto Rossellini.

Michael Accordino, Robert Anderson, Claudio Angelini, Enrica Antonioni, Michelangelo Antonioni, Amelia Antonucci, Dennis Aspland, Jeanine Basinger, Peter Becker, Marcella Berger, Sidney Bernstein, David Brown, Kay Brown, Charles W. Bush, Jack Cardiff, Jerry Carlson, Fred Chase, Joseph Cotten, Gypsy da Silva, I. A. L. Diamond, Stanley Donen, Lisa Drew, Mark Ekman, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Vera Fairbanks, Jean Firstenberg, Marie Florio, Joe Franklin, Steve Friedeman, Bob Gazzale, John Gielgud, Farley Granger, Cary Grant, Tracey Guest, Dick Guttman, Robert Haller, Harry Haun, Paul Henreid, Arthur Hiller, Pat Hitchcock, Christopher Isherwood, Maria Cooper Janis, Peter Johnson, Alexander Kordonsky, John Landis, Ted Landry, Henri Langlois, Arthur Laurents, Madeleine LeBeau, Johanna Li, Pia Lindstrom, Norman Lloyd, Sidney Lumet, Groucho Marx, Giulietta Masina, Kevin McCarthy, Mary Merson, Sylvia Miles, Liza Minnelli, Vincente Minnelli, Jeremiah Newton, Arthur Novell, Gregory Peck, Anthony Quinn, Michael Redgrave, Leni Riefenstahl, Robert Rosen, Gil Rossellini, Isotta Ingrid Rossellini, Renzo Rossellini, Victoria Rossellini, Lars Schmidt, Martin Scorsese, Daniel Selznick, Irene Mayer Selznick, Sidney Sheldon, Joe Sirola, Dana Sloan, Liz Smith, John Springer, Jeff Stafford, Rip Torn, Jonah Tully, Paavo Turtiainen, Brian Ulicky, Liv Ullmann, King Vidor, Herman G. Weinberg, Tennessee Williams, Will Willoughby, Fay Wray, William Wyler, and Michael York.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the American Film Institute, Anthology Film Archives, the British Film Institute, the Cinmathque Franaise, City College of New York, the Criterion Collection, the Film Society of Lincoln Center, illy, the Italian Cultural Institute of New York City, the Museum of Modern Art, the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, the Potsdam Museum Archives, Turner Classic Movies, UCLA Department of Theater, Film, and Television, and the Jeanine Basinger Collection at Wesleyan University.

One
Ingrid and Sweden

Two
Ingrid and Hollywood

Three
Ingrid and Italy

Four
Ingrid and the World

Five
Ingrid and the Final Years

I ngrid Bergman was not a person who cared about fur, but as she told me, My experiences with fur, you might say, tell the story of my life.

The story of fur and me is like one of those films you see about an overcoat and all of the people it belonged to, or a tuxedo that starts out in glory and falls on hard times, or even the yellow Rolls-Royce which starred in one of my films.

As a little girl, I posed for my fathers pictures of me in my mothers fur coat, but I never gave it a thought. I lived in a country where just about everyone had some kind of fur coat. I didnt get cold easily and I never needed fur. The reason, I think, most of the girls I knew looked forward to having their first fur coat was because when you got one, it meant you were grown up.

I loved my childhood, and I did not think much about growing up. I lived in the present. My father was my best friend, and I only wanted everything to stay the same. Everything did not stay the same, however, and when she was twelve, Ingrids father died.

About to be twenty-one and using money her careful and caring father had left in trust for her, Ingrid moved into her first apartment, all her own. She was thrilled by the increased independence the apartment represented. It was like being able to fly. Even if you dont want to fly, its nice to know youre free to try.

Ingrid especially liked the privacy, much superior to that offered by her room in her strict Uncle Ottos home, with his wife, Aunt Hulda, and Ingrids five cousins. She did not mind being alone some of the time. In fact, she said she rather liked it and was pleased to find that she enjoyed her own company.

With the earnings from her film work in Stockholm, the first money she ever had earned, teenage Ingrid bought a leopard coat and a used wind-up gramophone, not the most practical of purchases, she told me, but not the least practical, either. I think that best describes me.

For her twenty-first birthday, Petter Lindstrm (later Lindstrom), who had become Ingrids fianc, gave her a fox stole. It was what fashionable ladies of the time were wearing, she continued, quite in vogue at the Grand Hotel in Stockholm, which was where Petter and I had our first date. With him, it was the first time I had ever been inside the Grand Hotel, and there were ladies with fox stoles.

I dont know if youve ever seen one, but it was a small fur stole which, like a scarf, you wore around your neck. The foxes were biting their own tails, and their open glass eyes stared at you.

Now I find the style ugly and I am appalled by it, but when the package arrived and I opened it, I almost fainted from joy. All alone in the room, I squealed gleefully. As soon as I put it on, I loved it. It was the most wonderful gift I had ever received. It was like Petters arms around me. The stole was the height of fashion, quite the rage at that moment, and it was for me a symbol of my being grown up and even sophisticated.

Of course, I wouldnt be living alone very long. Soon, I would be married to Petter and living with him. I couldnt wait for that moment. I knew I couldnt live without him, and this stole was the token of how great his love for me was.