Viveca Lindfors

Elsa Viveca Torstensdotter Lindfors was born on December 29, 1920, in Uppsala, Sweden, the daughter of Karin Emilia Therese (née Dymling) and Axel Torsten Lindfors. A Swedish-American actress who worked across stage, film, and television, she trained at the Royal Dramatic Training Academy in Stockholm before establishing herself as a theater and film star in Sweden. In 1946, she relocated to the United States after signing with Warner Bros. and began a career in Hollywood that would span decades and encompass more than 100 films.

Lindfors made her Broadway debut in 1952, appearing alongside Edmond O'Brien in John Van Druten's I've Got Sixpence. Her Broadway career continued through 1971 and included a starring role in Anastasia as well as appearances in Dance of Death, Postmark Zero, and the musical Pal Joey. In 1954, she made her West End debut in J. B. Priestley's The White Countess.

Her film work brought her into productions alongside a wide range of prominent actors, including Ronald Reagan, Charlton Heston, Errol Flynn, Glenn Ford, Stewart Granger, Jeffrey Hunter, and Lizabeth Scott. Her screen credits include Night Unto Night, No Sad Songs for Me, Dark City, The Halliday Brand, King of Kings, An Affair of the Skin, Creepshow, The Sure Thing, and Stargate. In 1962, she shared the Silver Bear for Best Actress at the Berlin Film Festival with Rita Gam for their performances in Tad Danielewski's No Exit.

On television, Lindfors appeared frequently as a guest star, with the bulk of her appearances concentrated in the 1950s and 1960s and a later resurgence in the 1980s and early 1990s. She played the title role in the miniseries Frankenstein's Aunt and received an Emmy nomination in 1978 for her supporting performance in the TV movie A Question of Guilt. In 1990, she won an Emmy Award for a guest appearance on the series Life Goes On.

In the final years of her life, Lindfors taught acting at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan. She appeared in Henry Jaglom's Last Summer in the Hamptons in 1995, playing a role described as essentially herself, and that same year returned to Stockholm to perform in In Search of Strindberg at the Strindberg Festival.

Lindfors was married four times: to Swedish cinematographer Harry Hasso, Swedish attorney and World Chess Federation president Folke Rogard, director Don Siegel, and Hungarian writer, producer, and director George Tabori. She had three children — sons John Tabori, with Hasso, and actor Kristoffer Tabori, with Siegel, and daughter Lena Tabori, with Rogard. A naturalized U.S. citizen and a liberal Democrat, she was a supporter of Jimmy Carter's presidency. Lindfors died on October 25, 1995, in Uppsala, from complications of rheumatoid arthritis, at the age of 74.