by Grace Carter
The next day, Ingrid did her screen test without makeup. Many years later, she got a chance to see it. “Bang goes the clapper board, and there I am so red in the face it’s unbelievable because I blushed at everything they said to me or if they flattered me,” she recalled.
That night, the Selznicks hosted a dinner party in Ingrid’s honor, inviting such Hollywood luminaries as Cary Grant, Spencer Tracy, Clark Gable, Loretta Young, Gary Cooper, and Joan Bennett. Nervously, she sat on a couch by herself in her secondhand outfit, which she thought looked very stylish with its pink top and multi-colored skirt, big balloon sleeves, and belt. “I didn’t need anyone to talk to,” she said later, “I was just stupefied with happiness, just looking.”
What Ingrid didn’t know was she was already getting bad reviews by a group of guests hanging out at the bar area. “The general topic of conversation was that David Selznick had just bought himself a nice big healthy Swedish cow,” Ingrid said. Thousand-dollar bets were being offered that she would never be the next Garbo. “Actress?” one guest said. “Look at the size of her! Yes, she could play a Swedish masseuse, or maybe a cook or a Swedish laundress. But I’ll lay you another thousand she’ll never even rate in a ‘B’ picture.”
Selznick became so mad he almost exploded – and offered to double any bet being put up. “The bet was that within one year, that girl Ingrid Bergman sitting on the couch would be a star celebrity,” she said. “And if they didn’t accept their own appraisal of that fact he’d pay up.” Through it all, Ingrid said, she just sat there, “smiling happily at everybody, and enjoying myself enormously, not understanding a great deal of what was going on.”
A week later, David Selznick moved Ingrid into a four-bedroom Spanish villa he had leased for her in Beverly Hills, complete with an assistant, a chauffeur, and a cook. She had argued that she would be just as happy staying in her trailer, but Irene explained that would be inappropriate for an actress of her stature. Her red-roofed house, located on South Camden Drive, had no swimming pool, but it did have a garden filled with lemon and olive trees, cactuses, and jasmine.
On her first working day in the studio, Ingrid was introduced to Ruth Roberts, her new dialogue coach. The sister of screenwriter and director George Seaton, Roberts had also tutored a number of Hollywood’s other European imports. “Now this is your language coach,” David Selznick said, explaining that she would live with Roberts, eat with her, and stay with her day and night to improve her English.
Immediately, Ingrid thought, “Oh God, what a bore!” But after a few hours, she realized how wrong she was. Ruth, who was also Swedish, would become a lifelong friend and one of three women Ingrid would later call “the main pillars of my life,” along with Kay Brown and Irene Selznick.
Irene served as her guide to Hollywood. From the moment she laid eyes on Ingrid’s single suitcase and secondhand evening dress, she realized she had to teach this innocent girl about the wicked ways of the film business, including the fabled “casting couch” and producers on the make. “As it turned out I was fortunate, and I got the parts without any of this,” Ingrid said. “But Irene was very wise and very helpful. She knew what she was talking about. I recognized it all as it was coming toward me, and said, ‘no.’”
Ingrid also became very fond of David Selznick, who was quite charming, especially after having a few drinks. “He’d never stop talking and it was such interesting talk,” she said. “He was so full of ideas.” When she got up to leave a party, he would rush to the door, hold his arms out wide to stop her, and say, “You’re not going home. I won’t let you. I’ve just had this marvelous new idea for you.”
So Ingrid would stay and listen to what invariably was a truly marvelous idea that left her excited. “That was a pretty good idea you had last night, David,” she would say the next day. “Now what are we going to do about it?” And Selznick would peer at her through his big glasses with a puzzled look and say, “What idea? I don’t remember any idea.”
Ingrid got a taste of how volatile David Selznick could be on the first morning of shooting. She was sitting in her trailer with Roberts going over the dialogue for the opening shot when she heard what sounded like a big argument outside. She looked through the door and saw Selznick with Willie Wyler, the film’s director. Wyler, thirty-six, was coming into his own as a director; he had just finished making the classic Wuthering Heights and would later win Oscars for Best Director and Best Picture for Mrs. Miniver (1942), The Best Years of Our lives (1946), and Ben Hur (1959).
The next thing she knew, Wyler was storming past her door and she heard a great slam as he went through another door. “What happened?” Ingrid said to Selznick. “Oh,” he said cheerfully, “you’ve just lost your director.” As she got to know Selznick better, she realized scenes like this were not uncommon. He was constantly interfering with the work of the people he hired. In this case, Wyler said it was impossible for him to complete the film in only six weeks as Selznick demanded, and he was equally unhappy with the script.
To replace him, Selznick hired Gregory Ratoff, a Russian actor-turned-director who was an old friend. Ratoff, known for his volatile temper, was prone to shouting orders in a thick accent that made his instructions difficult to understand. Fortunately, he liked Ingrid and took a more gentle approach with her. Ingrid found it amusing when Ratoff, whose command of English was as tenuous as her own, attempted to correct her pronunciation, a job best left to Ruth.
Soon, Selznick went on another rampage, this time about the cinematography. Unhappy with the way Ingrid looked on film, he sent a memo to Harry Stradling - a talented and reputable cameraman in both America and Europe - admonishing him for failing to capture Ingrid’s beauty as well as the crew in Sweden had, and told him the lighting and angles needed to be reworked. After only two weeks, Selznick removed Stradling and brought in Gregg Toland, the cinematographer for Wuthering Heights.
Ingrid was upset with Selznick’s decision and worried that Stradling had been treated unfairly. “Tears came to her eyes,” Selznick wrote in a memo to his publicity director William Hebert. “She wanted to know whether it would hurt [Strandling’s] standing [to be let go] because, after all, he was a very good cameraman and it didn’t matter if she was photographed a little worse - she would rather have this than hurt him.”
This dumbfounded Selznick, who was more accustomed to actors demanding cameramen be fired for making them look bad; Ingrid, he was beginning to realize, was an altogether different breed – considerate, straightforward, and hard-working. She was so frugal that when a dress she was wearing was unflattering and was about to be thrown out, she offered suggestions on how it could be altered instead.
“Miss Bergman is the most completely conscientious actress with whom I have ever worked,” Selznick said in his memo, “in that she thinks of absolutely nothing but her work before and during the time she is doing a picture, and makes no engagements of any kind and no plans that for one minute distract her from her picture work. She practically never leaves the studio and even suggested that her dressing room be equipped so that she could live there during the picture. She never for a minute suggests quitting at six o’clock or anything of the kind, and, on the contrary, is very unhappy if the company does not work until midnight, claiming that she does her best work in the evenings after a long day’s work.”
In fact, Selznick told Hebert in the memo, all publicity about Ingrid should reflect these wholesome, down-to-earth aspects of her character. When shooting began for Intermezzo, Selznick made sure that Ingrid’s lack of artifice and her warm sincerity were highlighted by Toland’s cinematography. His hunch was that these unusual, distinctive qualities of Ingrid’s were what would ultimately endear her to American audiences.
With English actor Leslie Howard in the leading role - and acting as associate producer - the American version of Intermezzo, though still set in Sweden, took on a more British tone. As expected, Selznick closely supervised every detail, from rewrites of the script to I
ngrid’s first appearance on screen, “This is your first impact upon the American audience,” Selznick said, “and it’s got to be sensational - sensational!”
Ingrid’s character Anita, like other roles she had played so successfully in Sweden, is an adoring protégé deeply in love with her idol, in this case the virtuoso violinist Holger Brandt, and feels conflicted by her guilt and professional ambitions. The first scene looked straightforward enough to Ingrid: She walks through a door, takes off her hat and coat, hangs them in the hall, and moves to the doorway. Then she sees the world-famous violinist playing his instrument, and his lovely small daughter is playing the piano.
Selznick, however, demanded fireworks. “Now how do you hang up your coat, stand in the doorway, look through at this pretty domestic scene, and make it sensational?” Ingrid wondered.
“I don’t know,” Selznick replied. “Let’s do it.” They did the scene. “Let’s do it again,” Selznick said. They did it again – ten times. Selznick looked at the rushes (raw footage) and said, “I think it can be better. Do it again. Maybe something happens.”
They kept filming the scene, over and over again – about thirty times by Ingrid’s estimate. Even after the shooting had supposedly wrapped, Selznick was still demanding re-shoots. On her last day on the set, when Ingrid was late for her train back to New York, on her way home to Sweden, Selznick insisted on re-shooting that first scene yet again. “I had to race out of that studio, still wearing the clothes I wore on the set; shouting goodbye to the crew, and throw myself into the car to catch the train by seconds,” Ingrid said. It was still an ordinary scene, but Selznick wanted to make sure he had tried everything possible – and drove everybody crazy – to make it rise above the quotidian. Unusual behavior for sure. But, as Ingrid said later, “That’s David Selznick for you.”
In late July 1939, Ingrid arrived in New York and boarded the Queen Mary, headed for home. “What a marvelous time I have had in Hollywood!” she wrote to Ruth. Ingrid did not know whether she would ever see Ruth or Kay or Irene again – or, for that matter, America, or Hollywood. But she desperately hoped David Selznick would exercise his option for a second picture.
Ingrid still owed the UFA two films under her contract – she had already turned down several scripts, and the Germans were growing impatient – but Lindstrom had assured Selznick’s executives that Ingrid would make herself available if the studio picked up her option.
As she sailed across the Atlantic, a cable arrived from Selznick: “Dear Ingrid, You are a very lovely person and you warm all our lives. Have a marvelous time but come back soon. Your Boss.”
Ingrid smiled. It appeared that she had a bright future in America. But after nearly four months away from her husband and infant daughter, she was not at all sure what kind of reception she would receive back home.
When the Queen Mary arrived in Cherbourg, France on August 19, 1939, Lindstrom met Ingrid at the dock and brought her home to Stockholm where he had rented a new house for them in the Djurgarden city park area.
“Petter was very pleased to see me,” Ingrid recalled. “I couldn’t say the same thing about Pia,” not yet a year old. “She took one look at me and yelled her head off. She wanted no part of her mother, but she got used to me after a while.”
Relations with Lindstrom were strained as well; Ingrid would later say that their marriage was never the same after their long separation. Her growing independence put her at odds with her conservative and controlling husband. Despite her appreciation for Lindstrom’s deft handling of her career, Ingrid felt confined by her domestic obligations and out of place in her family of three. She still wanted her husband’s help in managing her career but also craved the freedom to make her own choices.
Her months in America had proven that Ingrid was not only a stellar actress but also capable of handling many of her own affairs. While she had Kay, Irene, and David to thank for helping her navigate the murky waters of Hollywood, it was her relationships with other friends and associates - Ruth Roberts, crew members, even her maid - that reassured her she could trust her own instincts and make her own decisions.
Even those in the rarified entertainment world, however, were not immune to world events that were taking a dark turn. On September 1, 1939, she and the rest of Europe got a jolt of bad news: While sewing hems into curtains for their new living room, she heard on the radio that Germany had invaded Poland and Britain and France had declared war on Germany.
“This was a big shock because I’d been so often in Germany visiting my aunts and grandparents,” she recalled. “I knew the Nazis were evil, but I did not think they would involve us all in another European war. I’d been so excited coming back from Hollywood and picking up all the old threads again and then going straight into my next Swedish film, A Night in June, that I just hadn’t seen the war coming. Now there it was, right next door to us.”
A week later, when Intermezzo was released in America, Ingrid became a national sensation. The press and the public loved her. A review in The New York Times began, “Sweden’s Ingrid Bergman is so lovely a person and so gracious an actress . . .” It later lauded her “freshness, simplicity and natural dignity” and called her acting “surprisingly mature, yet singularly free from the stylistic traits - the mannerisms, postures, precise inflections - that become the stock in trade of the matured actress . . . There is that incandescence about Miss Bergman, that spiritual spark which makes us believe that Selznick has found another great lady of the screen.”
The novelist Graham Greene, then film critic of the Spectator, raved in a January 1940 review that Ingrid gave “a performance which doesn’t give the effect of acting at all but of living - without makeup. Mr. Howard with his studied inflexions can’t help seeming a little false besides the awkward truth of the young actress . . .” As Ingrid’s coauthor Alan Burgess put it, “For her, acting comes from the heart, from instinctive reflexes, from built-in understanding, sympathy, identification, and belief.”
Delighted with Ingrid’s newfound celebrity – and exceptionally pleased with himself for the part he played in her success – Selznick called her in Sweden to read her the reviews, repeatedly telling her, “I told you so.” Theaters were clamoring to add the movie to their schedule, and moviegoers stood in long lines to see Selznick’s latest discovery.
Overwhelmed by the critics’ praise, Ingrid was teary all day. Selznick and Ratoff had told her she was doing a good job, but she refused to believe it until she saw the public’s reaction. When audiences agreed, she was finally convinced.
Since her contract with Selznick was not scheduled to begin until April, in October 1939, Ingrid began work on a Swedish film called A Night in June, written by Ragnar Hyltén-Cavallius and directed by Per Lindberg. “It is so easy to play in my own language I think I am dreaming,” she wrote in a letter to Roberts.
In one of the best performances of her career, Ingrid played Kerstin Nordback, a small-town woman whose abusive lover, Nils, shoots her in the chest when she threatens to leave him. After undergoing heart surgery, she testifies at his trial, claiming the abuse was her fault. When the press labels her a tramp, she changes her name to Sara and moves to Stockholm but then suffers a near-fatal heart spasm at the shock of seeing Nils again. When a doctor treats her, they fall in love and leave Stockholm for the countryside, with Sara finally willing to give love another chance. Ingrid carefully conveyed the consequences of being a man’s sexual toy, helping to create a film that was both honest and ahead of its time.
While she was making A Night in June, Ingrid received a telegram from Selznick telling her that the war would soon make it impossible to travel, so she should come to America, with her husband and child, as soon as possible. “He did not know what I was going to do,” Ingrid recalled, “but he wanted me in America to be on the safe side.”
Lindstrom insisted that he stay in Sweden while Ingrid and Pia went to California “for he was terribly worried that we should both come to harm. He did not
intend to leave Sweden: he was a man of military age, and a medical man at that, and he had served time in the army already. He would not try to escape or evade his responsibilities. But he insisted we had to go.”
A Night in June wrapped in early December and Ingrid, Petter, baby Pia, and a young Swedish nanny boarded a train for Italy. Sailing to America during wartime was no easy task. All French and British ports were closed to civilian traffic and boats were being sunk by enemy submarines. But Italian liners were still crossing the Atlantic to New York, so they headed for a port in Genoa.
As their train passed through Berlin, they could see the city was blacked out, “with people scurrying around in the darkness like ghosts, and everyone frightened,” Ingrid recalled.
The family spent New Year’s Eve of 1939 in a hotel in Genoa, “and I think it was the saddest New Year’s Eve ever,” Ingrid recalled. While the nanny slept upstairs with Pia, Ingrid and Petter sat in the dining room, where a holiday dance was being held.
“Everybody was dancing and screaming, aware that the war was right outside their door, and trying to shut that out because who knew what would happen before the next New Year?” she recalled. “And we danced and we were very sad, and we too tried to pretend that we didn’t know there was a blackout and bombers flying in the night . . . but we did know. And I thought, I’m leaving the next morning with Pia, and maybe I’ll never see Petter again. I was leaving with his child and he might get involved with the war and not survive . . . oh, those were terrible moments.”
On January 2, Ingrid stood holding Pia on the deck of the huge Italian liner, Rex, while a band played, horns blew, and people cheered and shouted. Lindstrom ran along the dockside waving to them while Ingrid held Pia up and waved goodbye with her hand. “It seemed that maybe we should never see each other again,” she said later, “and my tears were falling all over Pia.”
