Ingmar Bergman

Bergman’s first wife was Else Fisher, a choreographer and dancer, whom he married in March 1943. The couple had one daughter Lena Bergman who was born the same year. They were divorced in 1945.

Ellen Lundstr�m, a choreographer and film director became his second wife in 1945. He fathered four children Eva, Jan, Mats and Anna before getting divorced in 1950.

From 1951 to 1959, he was married to Gun Grut, a journalist who gave birth to their son Ingmar Bergman Jr. in 1951.

Bergman was born into a strict Lutheran family to Erik Bergman, who was a Lutheran minister and Karin, a nurse.

He was just nine when he developed a fascination for films and bought a ‘laterna magica’ or ‘magic lantern’, an early image protector made in the 17th century.

He joined the Stockholm University College in 1937 to study art and literature and also became involved in theatre. He could not complete college but wrote plays and also an opera which helped him get a job as an assistant director at a theater.

In 1942, he directed a play ‘Caspar's Death’ which was also written by him. The play caught the attention of ‘AB Svensk Filmindustri’, a Swedish film production company, in which he was offered a job.

As a director, his breakthrough in the film industry came with the 1944 movie ‘Torment/Frenzy’ in which he was an assistant director to Alf Sj�berg.

With the 1955 movie ‘Sommarnattens leende’ (Smiles of a Summer Night), he achieved worldwide recognition and the movie was nominated for the prestigious Palme d'Or at Cannes in 1956.

In 1957, another movie ‘The Seventh Seal’ directed by him earned a Palme d'Or nomination at Cannes. The next two decades saw a series of blockbuster movies by him and he became one of the most sought-after directors in the industry.

In 1966, he came up with ‘Persona’ which he considered to be his masterpiece. The movie earned great critical appreciation and is considered “one of the 20th century’s great works of art”.

His 1960 film ‘The Virgin Spring’ which is based on the themes of exploitation and moral justice won an Academy Award. It amassed $700,000 at the box-office in USA and was also the inspiration for the 1972 American horror film ‘The Last House on the Left’.

In 1961, he directed ‘Through a Glass Darkly’ which also won an Academy Award in 1962.

Another famous movie directed by him was ‘Fanny and Alexander’ which won four Academy Awards in 1984 with a box office turnover of $6,783,304.