Viveca Lindfors

Elsa Viveca Torstensdotter Lindfors (December 29, 1920 – October 25, 1995) was a Swedish-American stage, film, and television actress. She won an Emmy Award and a Silver Bear for Best Actress.

Biography Lindfors was born in Uppsala, Sweden, the daughter of Karin Emilia Therese (née Dymling) and Axel Torsten Lindfors.

She trained at the Royal Dramatic Training Academy, Stockholm. Soon after, she became a theater and film star in Sweden. She moved to the United States in 1946 after being signed by Warner Bros., and began working in Hollywood. She appeared in more than 100 films, including 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. She appeared with actors including Stewart Granger, Ronald Reagan, Jeffrey Hunter, Charlton Heston, Glenn Ford, Lizabeth Scott, and Errol Flynn. She was nominated for an Emmy in 1978 for her supporting role in the TV movie A Question of Guilt.

In 1962, she shared the Silver Bear for Best Actress award with Rita Gam at the Berlin Film Festival, for their performances in Tad Danielewski's No Exit. Among her later film roles, she played the kindly and worldly wise Professor Taub in The Sure Thing (1985).

In the last years of her life, she taught acting at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan, and had a lead role (essentially playing herself) in Henry Jaglom's Last Summer in the Hamptons (1995). The same year, she returned to the Strindberg Festival in Stockholm to perform in the play In Search of Strindberg.

Personal life and death 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 – two sons (John Tabori with Hasso, and actor Kristoffer Tabori, with Siegel) and a daughter (Lena Tabori, with Rogard).

Lindfors was a naturalized U.S. citizen and a liberal Democrat, who supported the presidency of Jimmy Carter.

Lindfors died from complications of rheumatoid arthritis at the age of 74 in Uppsala.

Selected filmography

Major stage appearances Year Title Role Theatre 1952 I've Got Sixpence Inez Cabral Ethel Barrymore Theatre 1954–55 Anastasia Anna Lyceum Theatre 1956 Miss Julie Miss Julie Phoenix Theatre 1956 The Stronger Miss Y Phoenix Theatre 1956 King Lear Cordelia New York City Center 1959 I Rise in Flames, Cried the Phoenix Frieda Lucille Lortel Theatre 1962 Brecht on Brecht n/a Lucille Lortel Theatre 1963 Pal Joey Vera Simpson New York City Center 1965 Postmark Zero n/a Brooks Atkinson Theatre 1967 The Niggerlovers The God, Angela Lucille Lortel Theatre 1971 Dance of Death Alice Ritz Theatre