Isabella Rossellini recalls her mother Ingrid Bergman’s battles against Hollywood

In May 1981, after several years in retirement, Ingrid Bergman found herself on a film set once more. Waiting patiently for hair and make-up to finish their work, she admitted to the director that she was nervous about acting again. “But,” she said, gesturing towards the camera, “I see a friend over there.”

Bergman, who was born 100 years ago this month, loved the camera. And the feeling was mutual; in an outstanding career, she won three Oscars and became one of the most bankable stars in Hollywood, appearing in classics such as Casablanca, Gaslight and the Hitchcock thriller Notorious. But her career had come to an abrupt halt in 1973 when she had discovered she was suffering from breast cancer. Now, her daughter, the actress Isabella Rossellini, is ready to reveal the anguish she and the rest of her family went through during that period, and the courage her mother displayed to finish that final project in 1981, a biopic about the late Israeli prime minister Golda Meir.

Talking in her familiar lilting tone, the star of Blue Velvet, who herself is into her seventieth decade, says she found it hard to watch such a vivacious character, who had lived life so fully, come to terms with the limits the illness placed upon her ambitions.

“Mama suffered from breast cancer for nine years and the last three years, when my brother and sisters took turns to be with her in London, were very difficult,” she says. “The cancer had spread to her lymph nodes, she had an enormous [tumour on her] right arm and was very depressed with the fear of being unable to act.”

The television biopic A Woman Called Golda, for which Bergman won a posthumous Emmy award, was what kept the actress going, despite being in constant pain. She was eager to work. She told no one she was ill and put in 12 to 15-hour days on the set in Israel, spending two hours in make-up daily, in order to be transformed from what she laughingly called a “tall, Swedish Lutheran” into what Rossellini describes as “a little woman known for her genius rather than her beauty”.

“It was perfect for mother, who was only ever interested in investigating how many stories you could tell and how many characters you could play,” says Rossellini. “I love that she was able to do what she loved until the very end. No other actress worked in so many languages and styles, all over the world, and with such great talents. She is so much a part of the history of film.”

In the past, Rossellini has said that she was unable to watch her mother’s films because they brought back the pain of her loss so acutely. But as the centenary approached, she felt an urgent need to mark the anniversary and set about making a documentary about her mother with the Swedish director Stig Bjorkman. She has also co-written a tribute, which she will present with the actor Jeremy Irons at the Royal Festival Hall in London next month.

It will feature never-before-seen home movies and photos from her mother’s archive, and readings from her autobiography, journals and letters. The show, she says, will be a testament to her mother’s talent and strength of character.

Unique selling point

Born in Stockholm in 1915, Bergman lost her mother at the age of two. Her artist father died when she was 12 and her aunt, who had raised her, when she was 13. “It was an incredibly sad childhood, but when she started acting, the sadness lifted,” says Rossellini.

Bergman won a place at Sweden’s Royal Dramatic Theatre School at 18 and by the time she was 22 had already starred in 11 Swedish films. Her entree into Hollywood came soon after. As is well documented, the legendary producer of Gone with the Wind, David O Selznick was looking for a new Swedish glamourpuss to replace Greta Garbo, and decided to bring Bergman to Los Angeles. But, Rossellini confides, when she arrived in 1939, he feared he had made a terrible mistake.

“Selznick worried Mama was too tall, she had a German name which she refused to change, she wouldn’t fix her teeth. She didn’t want to be changed in any way,” says Rossellini. Rapidly, however, Selznick realised it was this “naturalness” that gave Bergman her unique selling point. Soon she was the toast of Hollywood, with roles in films such as Joan of Arc, Notorious, Spellbound and Gaslight, for which she won her first Oscar (the others were for Anastasia and Murder on the Orient Express).

Known for her cheerful nature, Bergman stood out from her dainty peers, refusing to wear high heels and happily eating four ice creams a day, before living on cottage cheese in the run-up to a film.

“Mother was very Swedish, practical, direct and down-to-earth,” says Rossellini. “She always told the truth, so when an interviewer asked, ‘Who’s your favourite designer?’ she replied, ‘I don’t buy designer clothes, they’re too expensive.’ Everyone was stupefied, it was blasphemy!” Such a free spirit chafed at Hollywood’s determination to categorise its actors.

‘A bird in a cage’

“Everyone was a symbol: the gangster, the femme fatale. Cary Grant always played Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart played Jimmy Stewart. Mother was typecast as the ingenue, but she was very adventurous and wanted to find more ways of making art.” When Victor Fleming wanted her as the heroine in his 1941 Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, she refused, instead insisting on the “little [expletive]” part. “Still she wanted to surprise more people,” Rossellini says. “She felt like a bird in a cage, she wanted to be without roots, free to fly everywhere, to migrate.”

It was in this spirit that, in 1948, she wrote to Italian director Roberto Rossellini, then making waves with neo-realist films, such as Rome, Open City: “If you need a Swedish actress who in Italian knows only ‘ti amo’, I am ready to come and make a film with you.”

Both were married, Bergman to Swedish surgeon Petter Lindstrom, the father of 12-year-old Pia. But two years after meeting, they had made the film Stromboli and Bergman was pregnant with Rossellini’s son. The puritanical United States was horrified. One senator denounced Bergman as “a powerful influence for evil”. Ed Sullivan refused to have her on his show and her films were banned in several cities. “They thought she was a bad influence on young people,” Rossellini says. Bergman, who wasn’t allowed to see Pia for eight years, was deeply upset. “Mama was very hurt to be portrayed as a devil. She didn’t expect the reaction to be so overwhelming,” Rossellini says. Public opinion softened after the pair divorced their respective spouses and married. But it was eight years before Bergman returned to Hollywood to present the best film Oscar, receiving a standing ovation.

“I’ve gone from saint to [expletive] and back to saint again all in one lifetime,” she said. She and Rossellini made six more films and had two more children, the twins Isabella and Isotta, known as Ingrid. But when the girls were five, their parents separated.

“Swedes and Italians don’t mix,” Bergman said. The children were brought up by nannies in a Rome hotel. Bergman went on to marry and divorce a third time to Swede Lars Schmidt. She based herself in Paris, worked with European directors including Ingmar Bergman, and visited her children only occasionally. She was always frank about neglecting her children in favour of her career. “I felt guilty, but not guilty enough,” she said. But Rossellini bears no grudges. “I don’t feel like I am handicapped by my upbringing,” she says.

Just after filming for A Woman Called Golda finished, Bergman asked Schmidt to take her to the Swedish island that had been their home. There she died, in 1982, on her 67th birthday. All her children telephoned. “There, you see,” she told them. “I have made it through another year.”

The Ingrid Bergman Tribute is at the Royal Festival Hall on Sunday, September 6.