Inga Swenson

Inga Swenson (December 29, 1932 – July 23, 2023) was an American actress and singer born in Omaha, Nebraska, the youngest of three children of Geneva Pauline (née Seeger) and Axel Carl Richard Swenson. Her father died in a car accident when she was 15. Swenson graduated from Omaha Central High School in 1950, where she served as president of the Central High Players and was recognized as the school's top vocalist. During her junior year she won the state title in the National Forensic League's speech contest and subsequently took the national title as well. She went on to study drama at Northwestern University under Alvina Krause, among others, and became a trained lyric soprano. She was a life member of The Actors Studio.

Swenson made her stage debut in 1949 as a maid in Peg O' My Heart at the Berkshire Playhouse in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Her Broadway debut followed in 1956 as a singer in the revue New Faces of '56 at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. She received the Theatre World Award in 1957, the same year she appeared on Broadway as Princess Charlotte in The First Gentleman at the Belasco Theatre. In 1960 she played Solveig in Peer Gynt at the Phoenix Theatre in New York City. Her most celebrated Broadway work came with two consecutive Tony Award nominations for Best Actress in a Musical: first for originating the role of Lizzie Curry in 110 in the Shade at the Broadhurst Theatre in 1963, and then for playing Irene Adler in Baker Street at the Broadway Theatre in 1965. She identified Lizzie Curry as her favorite role, and she later reprised it for a London engagement at the Palace Theatre in 1967 and on a U.S. tour.

Beyond her principal Broadway credits, Swenson accumulated an extensive record of stage work across regional and summer theatres throughout the 1950s and 1960s. She performed multiple seasons at the Playhouse Theatre in Eagles Mere, Pennsylvania, taking on roles ranging from Dunyasha in The Cherry Orchard and Alizon Elliot in The Lady's Not for Burning to the Countess Aurelia in The Madwoman of Chaillot. She appeared in three productions at the American Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Connecticut, playing Ophelia in Hamlet, Helena in A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Perdita in The Winter's Tale in 1958, then Juliet in Romeo and Juliet in 1959. She also played Desdemona in Othello at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., in 1963, and Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady with the City Center Light Opera Company in New York in 1968.

Swenson's film career included supporting roles in two notable 1962 releases: she played Ellen Anderson in Advise & Consent for Columbia Pictures and portrayed Kate Keller, Helen Keller's mother, in The Miracle Worker for United Artists. Her subsequent film appearances included Sister Monica in Lipstick (1976), Mrs. Craddock in The Betsy (1978), and a singer role in The Mountain Men (1980).

On television, Swenson built a substantial body of work beginning with a 1957 debut as a singer on the CBC's Chrysler Special. She appeared in two episodes of Bonanza in 1962 and 1963, playing Inger Borgstrom Cartwright, the mother of Hoss Cartwright. A multi-episode arc on the ABC sitcom Soap in 1978–79, in which she played the conniving Swedish birth mother Ingrid Svenson, led directly to her best-known television role. Because Benson was a spinoff of Soap sharing the same producers, she was cast as Gretchen Kraus, the autocratic German cook who later became head housekeeper and budget director, a part she held for seven years on the ABC series from 1979 to 1986. The character was known for the catchphrase "I hear you!" and for reminiscences beginning with "When I was a little girl in Bavaria…" The performance earned Swenson three Emmy nominations. She also appeared as the Northern matriarch Maude Hazard in the ABC miniseries North and South in 1985 and reprised the role in North and South, Book II in 1986.

Swenson married actor and singer Lowell Harris in 1953, and the couple had two sons, Mark and James. James died in a motorcycle accident in 1987 at the age of 26. Mark later retired from careers in motion picture and television film editing and in financial services. Swenson retired from acting in 1998 and died in Los Angeles on July 23, 2023, at the age of 90.