Bibi Andersson

Berit Elisabet Andersson, known professionally as Bibi Andersson, was a Swedish actress born in Kungsholmen, Stockholm, the daughter of Karin Andersson, a social worker, and Josef Andersson, a businessman. She was the younger sister of Swedish film actress Gerd Andersson. Andersson trained at the Terserus Drama School and subsequently at the Royal Dramatic Theatre School in Stockholm from 1954 to 1956, after which she joined the Royal Dramatic Theatre company in that city.

Her professional relationship with director Ingmar Bergman began as early as 1951, when she appeared in his production of an advertisement for the detergent Bris. She had also worked as an extra on film sets during her teenage years. Over the course of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, Andersson appeared in ten motion pictures and three television films under Bergman's direction, among them The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries, The Magician, The Passion of Anna, The Touch, and Persona. At the 1958 Cannes Film Festival, she shared the Best Actress Prize with Ingrid Thulin, Eva Dahlbeck, and Barbro Hiort af Ornäs for Bergman's Brink of Life, a film set in a maternity ward. In 1963, she received the Silver Bear for Best Actress at the 13th Berlin International Film Festival for her role in Vilgot Sjöman's The Mistress.

Her performance in Bergman's Persona in 1966 centered on her portrayal of a nurse opposite Liv Ullmann, whose character, actress Elizabet Vogler, suffers from a psychosomatic condition and remains largely mute throughout the film, leaving Andersson to carry the majority of the dialogue. That role earned her the Best Actress award at the 4th Guldbagge Awards. She accumulated four Guldbagge Awards in total, one for Best Actress and three for Best Supporting Actress. Also in 1966, she appeared alongside James Garner and Sidney Poitier in the Western Duel at Diablo. She later worked with director John Huston on The Kremlin Letter in 1970 and with Robert Altman on Quintet in 1979, the latter co-starring Paul Newman. She appeared opposite Steve McQueen in An Enemy of the People in 1977, a stage adaptation by Arthur Miller of Henrik Ibsen's play, which served as McQueen's only film carrying a producer credit. Her most prominent American film, I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, was also released in 1977 and co-starred Kathleen Quinlan.

Andersson made her American theatrical debut in 1973 with a production of Erich Maria Remarque's Full Circle, launching a Broadway presence that extended through 1977. During that period she also starred in The Night of the Tribades. In 1990, she took on the role of theatre director at Dramaten in Stockholm, where she directed several productions. During the late 1980s and early 1990s she worked primarily in television and as a stage actress, collaborating again with Bergman among others. She also served as a supervisor for Road to Sarajevo, a humanitarian project. In 2006, she received the Ibsen Centennial Commemoration Award.

Andersson published her autobiography, Ett ögonblick, in 1996. She was married three times: first to director Kjell Grede in 1960, with whom she had a daughter, before the marriage ended in divorce; second to politician and writer Per Ahlmark in 1979, also ending in divorce; and third to Gabriel Mora Baeza, whom she married on 29 May 2004. In 2009, Andersson suffered a stroke, after which she was hospitalized and unable to speak. She died on 14 April 2019 at the age of 83 from complications of a stroke. The minor planet 73767 Bibiandersson, discovered by Eric Walter Elst, is named in her honor.