Emilie Högquist

Emilie Sophie Högquist or Högqvist (29 April 1812 – 18 December 1846) was a Swedish stage actress. She was a star of the Royal Dramatic Theatre and has been referred to as the first celebrity within Swedish drama and known as the Swedish Aspasia, both for her artistic ability but also for the literary salon she hosted. She is also known in history for her love affair with King Oscar I of Sweden.

Life

Emilie Högquist was the daughter of Anders Högquist, butler of count Carl De Geer, and Anna Beata Hedvall. She was the sister of actors Jean Högquist and Hanna Högquist.

Early life

In 1821, she was enrolled in the ballet school of the Royal Dramatic Training Academy by her mother. At the school, she was a student of Karolina Bock. During her tenure as a student, she participated in the Selinderska Barntheatern, a children's theatre managed by Anders Selinder.

Emilie Högquist was early in life subject of prostitution. The profession of her father exposed her to the interest of male members of the upper classes, and her mother was known to host balls, to which she invited students from the acting school, including her daughter, and introduced them to rich men. Furthermore, the Royal Dramatic Theatre also hosted balls in which men could pay for the privilege to dance with a student of the Royal Dramatic Training Academy. Both the balls given by her mother and the theater balls were regarded with some suspicion, because the situation in which rich men was introduced to poor female student artists was considered to give opportunity for prostitution.

August Blanche once remarked of the mother of Emilie Högquist: "God save every child from a mother like that!" In 1834, however, she made a trip to Paris, where she studied the contemporary French acting methods, after which she is said to have improved, learned how to act with more self assurance onstage, how to dress with more skill in accordance to her roles, and acquired a better control of her voice. Upon her return, an important opportunity to demonstrate herself was given when star actress Sara Torsslow, famed as the leading "sentimental actress" and comedienne of the Royal Dramatic Theatre, left after the actors' strike of 1834, after which a replacement had to be found to fill the roles otherwise normally allotted to Torsslow, and after the star actress Charlotta Eriksson had been unable to perform them satisfyingly, as they were not of her genre. Emilie Högvist was given the chance, and with such success that she reportedly won over not only Torrslow's old admirers, but also acquired a wide circle of admirers of her own, and she was from this year regarded as "one of the most celebrated and often performing actresses" of the Royal Dramatic Theatre. Max grew up to become a merchant in China, where he died in 1872. Hjalmar died in 1874 in London.

Emilie Högquist was an intellectual and hosted a literary salon every Thursday for the Swedish art world of painters and authors. Notably, most of the guests at her salons were men, as women were afraid to be associated with her privately because of her reputation as a courtesan. Some exceptions were noted, such as Malla Höök and Elise Frösslind. She spent her summers at Framnäs on Djurgården. Though she died greatly in debt, the support of Crown Prince Oscar liberated her from any financial troubles and she was active within charity. She is noted to have acted as the patron of her brother Jean (Johan Isak) Högquist (1814–1850), who was a popular actor for a while, but did not manage his career because of his alcoholism. Emilie Högquist paid for his trip to the United States, but he returned on the year of her death, which is said to have affected him deeply, and he died just three years later. She is also noted to have supported former operatic singer Henriette Widerberg, who lived in deep poverty after her career had ended.

From 1842 onward, Emilie Högquist suffered from the health problems of a progressing consumption, and spent the summer in Rome, where she was celebrated by the Swedish art colony. Her health recovered, and upon her return, she visited her daughter and sons in Hamburg and met Emil Key, who was 10 years her junior, and became her last lover.

In the summer of 1845, she made a health journey to Carlsbad, but her illness had progressed to a point where she was no longer able to recover sufficiently to manage her work, and her last season of 1845-46 was a failure; after her last performance in December 1845, she was bedridden until May 1846. In July 1846, she left Sweden in an attempt to seek a cure for her consumption in a number of health resorts in Germany and Switzerland before continuing to Italy; she finally died in Turin 18 December 1846.

In fiction

The relationship between Emilie Högquist and Oscar I was portrayed in the film Emilie Högquist starring Signe Hasso and Georg Rydeberg (1939), one of the most expensive made in Sweden during the 1930s.