Ella Eronen

Ella Eronen (29 January 1900 — 9 October 1987) was a Finnish actress, poetic reciter, and one of the country's leading actresses in the 1930s to 1950s. Finnish theatre and film critic Jukka Kajava called her "possibly Finland's most legendary theatre actor".

Early life and education Ella Siviä Eronen was born in Helsinki to Finnish police detective August Eronen and Swedish Amanda Ahlgren, as one of the couple's five children and the eldest of three daughters in a bilingual family.

She learned acting at the Swedish Theatre in Helsinki in 1915, in the dance corps, but was largely self-learned. Her interest in acting and dance was encouraged by her mother, while her father was against it; her mother's death in 1916 put paid to her aspirations, until she later moved to Stockholm to continue her studies at the drama school of Sweden's royal national theatre 'Dramaten'. A few years later she made her dance debut at the Finnish National Theatre in the ballet Les Sylphides. ) The recital was broadcast on public radio in both Sweden and Finland, and as a result Eronen became popularly known as the 'Voice of Finland'. and in 1977, Finland's premier theatre award, the .

Personal life Eronen was married three times: first to Swedish actor Per Eugen Andersson (1919–24), then to sculptor ( Karl Svensson; 1928–35), and finally to portrait painter Eino Olavi Tarkkonen (1937–61); the first, unhappy marriage ended in the death of her husband from alcoholism, the latter two in divorce.

Eronen suffered from ill health in her final years, including in the autumn of 1987 a major stroke, which took away her ability to speak, and she died shortly afterwards.