Viveca Lindfors

For the Finnish figure skater, see Viveca Lindfors (figure skater).

Viveca Lindfors
with Bob Fosse in Broadway play, Pal Joey (1963)
Born	Elsa Viveca Torstensdotter Lindfors (1920-12-29)29 December 1920 Uppsala, Sweden
Died	25 October 1995(1995-10-25) (aged 74) Uppsala, Sweden
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1940–1995
Spouse(s)	George Tabori (1953–1970; divorced) Don Siegel (1948–1953; divorced) Folke Rogard (1944–1948; divorced) Harry Hasso (1941–1943; divorced)
Children	John Tabori with Hasso Kristoffer Tabori, with Siegel Lena Tabori, with Rogard

Elsa Viveca Torstensdotter Lindfors (29 December 1920 – 25 October 1995), better known under her professional name of Viveca Lindfors, was a Swedish stage and film actress.

Life and career

Lindfors was born in Uppsala, Sweden, the daughter of Karin Emilia Therese (née Dymling) and Axel Torsten Lindfors. She trained at the Royal Dramatic Theatre School, Stockholm. Soon after, she became a theater and film star in Sweden. She moved to the United States in 1946 after being signed by Warner Bros. and began working in Hollywood. She appeared in more than one hundred films including Night Unto Night, No Sad Songs for Me, Dark City, King of Kings, Creepshow, The Sure Thing, and Stargate.

She appeared with actors such as Ronald Reagan, Jeffrey Hunter, Charlton Heston, Lizabeth Scott and Errol Flynn. In 1963 she appeared in the film An Affair of the Skin as the mistress of Kevin McCarthy's character. Lindfors appeared in an television episode of the first season of Twelve O'Clock High. She also appeared on television, including the 1959 episode "The Temple of the Swinging Doll" of the NBC espionage drama Five Fingers, starring David Hedison. Later, she had a recurring role on the ABC series Life Goes On, for which she won an Emmy Award. Lindfors appeared with Joseph Cotten and Ward Bond in the 1957 film The Halliday Brand. One of her last performances was in the original Stargate film in which she played the role of Catherine Langford.

An original and mesmerizing stage presence, her roles ranged from Strindberg to Shakespeare to the musical Pal Joey.

In 1962 she shared the Silver Bear for Best Actress award with Rita Gam at the Berlin Film Festival, for their performances in Tad Danielewski's No Exit.

Among her later film roles, perhaps the most memorable is the kindly and worldly-wise Professor Taub in The Sure Thing (1985).

She was married four times: to Harry Hasso, a Swedish cinematographer; Folke Rogard, a Swedish attorney and World Chess Federation president; Don Siegel, the director; and George Tabori, a Hungarian writer, producer and director. She had three children: two sons (John Tabori with Hasso, and the actor Kristoffer Tabori, with Siegel) and a daughter (Lena Tabori, with Rogard).

In the last years of her life, she taught acting at the School of Visual Arts in New York, and had a lead role (essentially playing herself) in Henry Jaglom's Last Summer in the Hamptons (1995). The same year she returned to the Strindberg Festival in Stockholm to perform in the play In Search of Strindberg, which had been produced earlier that year at the Actors Studio. She died of rheumatoid arthritis at the age of 74 and was buried in Sweden. In New York City, a service was held at the Actors Studio where Gene Frankel, who had directed her in I Am a Woman and Brecht on Brecht, spoke to an audience about his respect and affection for her.

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1948	Adventures of Don Juan	Queen Margaret
1949	Night Unto Night	Ann Gracie
1950	Dark City	Victoria Winant
1950	Backfire	Lysa Radoff
1950	This Side of The Law	Evelyn Taylor
1950	No Sad Songs for Me	Chris Radna
1950	The Flying Missile	Karin Hansen
1951	Four in a Jeep	Franziska Idinger
1951	Journey Into Light	Christine Thorssen
1952	Riders of Vengeance	Elena de Ortega
1955	Moonfleet	Mrs. Minton
1955	Run for Cover	Helga Swenson
1958	I Accuse!	Lucie Dreyfus
1959	Rawhide	Luisa Esquivel Y Hadley	1 episode
1960	Johnny Midnight	Simone in episode "X Equals Murder")
1960	The Story of Ruth	Eleilat
1960	Weddings and Babies	Bea
1961	King of Kings	Claudia
1961	Tempest	Catherine the Great
1961	The Untouchables	Mrs. Jarreau
1961	Naked City	Lulu Kronen	1 episode
1962	No Exit	Inez	aka Sinners Go to Hell
1962/1964	The Defenders	Mady Lorne / Madeline Flanders	2 episodes
1963	The Damned	Freya Neilson	aka These Are the Damned
1964	Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea	Dr. Laura Rettig	1 episode
1964	12 O'Clock High	Nicole Trouchard	1 episode
1965	Bonanza	Angela Bergstrom	1 episode
1965/1966	Ben Casey	Mrs. Boone / Vivian Bennett	2 episodes
1967	The Diary of Anne Frank		TV movie
1967/1969	The F.B.I.	Ida Salzman / Eva Bolen	2 episodes
1970	The Interns	Jennie	1 episode
1972	A House Without Boundaries	Señorita Elvira
1973	The Bell from Hell	Marta
1973	The Way We Were	Paula Reisner
1978	Girlfriends	Beatrice
1979	Voices	Mrs. Lemon
1981	The Hand	Doctress
1982	Inside the Third Reich	Gypsy woman	TV movie
1982	Creepshow	Aunt Bedelia
1982	Dynasty	Adriana	1 episode
1983	Dies rigorose Leben	Ada
1984	Trapper John, M.D.	Zella Korevechi	1 episode
1984	Passions	Lila	TV movie
1985	The Sure Thing	Professor Taub
1987	Frankenstein's Aunt	Hannah von Frankenstein	7 episodes
1987	Rachel River	Harriet White
1988	The Ann Jillian Story	Ann's Mother	TV movie
1990	China Beach	Ilsa	1 episode
1990	The Exorcist III	Nurse X
1991	Zandalee	Tatta
1991	Child of Darkness, Child of Light	Ida Walsh
1992	North of Pittsburgh	Rosa Andretti	Genie Award nomination for Best Actress
1993	Law & Order	Helga Holtz	1 episode
1994	Stargate	Catherine Langford
1994	Backstreet Justice	Mrs. Robovit
1995	Last Summer in the Hamptons	Helena Mora

Major stage appearances

• 1952 – I've Got Sixpence .... Inez Cabral
• 1954/55 – Anastasia .... Anna
• 1956 – Miss Julie .... Miss Julie and The Stronger .... Miss Y
• 1956 – King Lear .... Cordelia
• 1963 – Pal Joey .... Vera Simpson
• 1965 – Postmark Zero
• 1971 - Dance of Death .... Alice

External links

• Viveca Lindfors at IMDb
• Viveca Lindfors at the Internet Broadway Database
• Viveca Lindfors at the University of Wisconsin's Actors Studio audio collection
• Edward Winter, The FIDE President and the Actress. ChessBase.com. Retrieved on 2009-01-20.
• Viveca Lindfors at Find a Grave
• Photographs and literature
• Viveca Lindfors papers, 1945–1990, held by the Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts