Lars Schmidt

Lars Reinhold Schmidt (11 June 1917 – 18 October 2009) was a Swedish theatrical producer, director and publisher. He owned theaters in Paris, France, and Sweden. Schmidt was instrumental in bringing American theater to the European stage. He produced and translated numerous post-war American plays in Europe; including A Streetcar Named Desire, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Oklahoma! and Anne Frank. He is considered one of the most important cultural personalities of the 20th century evolution and commercialization of European theatre. Lars Schmidt married three-time Academy Award-winning film star Ingrid Bergman in December 1958. Early life He was born in Uddevalla, Sweden. After working in coal mines in Swansea, Wales, he attended the City of London College in 1939. Schmidt returned to Sweden to serve in the army with the Bohuslän Regiment, and the following year he founded Lars Schmidt & Company to procure plays for the Gothenburg City Theatre.

In 1941 aged 24, Lars Schmidt moved to New York with the dream to become a writer for theater. His first Atlantic crossing during World War II to the United States was eventful. His vessel M/S Carolina Thorden was bombed and sunk by two German war planes off Tórshavn in the Faroe Islands, after departing from Finland. A British trawler rescued the survivors, and left them on the Faroe Islands. Schmidt lost his passport, letters of introduction and only had the clothes on his back when he finally arrived in New York, via Havana and Miami.

In 1983, he produced K2 at Theatre de la Porte Saint Martin in Paris, and in 1986 'night, Mother at Theatre Actuel in Paris. In 1988, he staged La Metamorphose with Roman Polanski at Theatre Gymnase-Marie Bell in Paris.

Theater director He directed A. R. Gurney's Love Letters at the Petit Marigny in Paris in 1990, and Sylvia at Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens in 1995.

New York In 1989 he produced Metamorphosis with Mikhail Baryshnikov at Barrymore Theater in New York City, and in 1994 was nominated for a Tony Award as a member of the production team of Arthur Miller's Broken Glass on Broadway.

Television producer In 1961, he produced the TV movie Twenty-Four Hours in a Woman's Life, in 1962 Hedda Gabler, and in 1966 The Human Voice all starring his wife Ingrid Bergman.

Personal life Lars Schmidt married Ingrid Bergman in 1958, at Caxton Hall in London, England, and they divorced in 1975. He married the Hungarian model Kristina Belfrage in 1977, with whom he had one son, Kristian Schmidt.

He died in Tanumshede, Sweden, in 2009.

Awards 1980: Chevalier of French Legion of Honor

1981: Illis quorum

1994: Tony Award Nomination for Best Pay; Broken Glass

1997: Officer of French Legion of Honor

2005: Commander of French Legion of Honor