Ingrid Bergman

by Grace Carter

  Feeling bad about the abrupt firing, the Théâtre de Paris asked Rossellini if he would direct another play, Tea and Sympathy, which could also feature Ingrid. They both agreed, but since the play would not be performed until the fall, both had to find something else to work on until then.

  Fortunately for Ingrid, Kay Brown had been working hard on her behalf, part of her long campaign to bring Ingrid back to Hollywood movies. Twentieth Century-Fox had bought the rights to Anastasia – the story of the woman with amnesia who was possibly the youngest daughter of Russian Czar Nicholas II – and Brown thought Ingrid would be perfect for it. The Russian-born director Anatole Litvak had been offered the job as director but agreed only if Ingrid would star.

  Years earlier, Litvak had offered Ingrid the role of a schizophrenic mental hospital patient in The Snake Pit, but she turned it down, and Olivia de Havilland won an Oscar for the part. “Look what you turned down!” Litvak would scold her, but Ingrid coolly replied, “I know what I turned down. It all takes place in an insane asylum and I couldn’t bear that. It was a very good part, but if I had played it, I wouldn’t have got an Oscar for it.” She was always sure of herself that way, never doubting a similar decision to pass on the young Swedish girl part in The Farmer’s Daughter that won an Oscar for Loretta Young. “I’ve never regretted refusing either of those parts,” she said.

  Now Litvak wanted Ingrid again. While she was still in Paris filming Elena and Her Men, the director asked to meet her in the bar of the Plaza Athénée Hotel. “I just want to know if you will do it if I can make the other people agree,” he said. Those “other people” included Fox’s president, Spyros Skouras, who wanted Jennifer Jones for the part. But the studio’s production chief Darryl Zanuck agreed with Brown that Ingrid was a better choice, and the film could make a big splash by celebrating her return to American movie theaters.

  Skouras still thought that was a bad idea. Many people at Fox “thought I was box-office poison,” Ingrid said later, and “anything they put me in would be destroyed, banned, and thrown out of America.” But Zanuck did not give up and received support from Buddy Adler, who had produced From Here To Eternity, winner of the 1954 Oscar for Best Picture. Not wanting to cause a stir by bringing Ingrid back to the states, Adler agreed that the film could be shot in London and Paris. Finally, Skouras came around.

  Now someone else had to be convinced: Rossellini. Letting Ingrid make a film with his artistic old friend Jean Renoir was one thing, but there was no way he would allow his wife to make a big Hollywood film with Litvak. “So a big fight started, and as usual, he threatened to drive the Ferrari into a tree,” Ingrid recalled dryly. “In the past he had always frightened me with this suicide threat: he was going to commit suicide, and it would be on my conscience. And I had enough on my conscience as it was. But I was determined to do Anastasia. I just didn’t believe his suicide threat anymore.”

  She told him, “We must think of the children. We must have more money. We must pay our bills. I must get back to the kind of work I can do successfully.”

  Rossellini refused to budge, telling her the film would be a failure. But Ingrid moved ahead anyway. She was tired of being pushed around. And she was far too excited about the role to pass it up. She would play Anna Koreff, a fictionalized version of the real woman who some believed was the Russian Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna. (DNA tests later revealed that the real Anastasia perished during the execution of the royal family in 1918, along with her four siblings and parents.) The film version, based on the 1952 French play of the same name by Marcelle Maurette, suggests that Anastasia survived the massacre but had no memory of her past. Unaware of her birthright and living as a vagabond, she becomes a pawn in a plot to convince the world that she is, indeed, the surviving grand duchess.

  Working on the film from May to August, Ingrid loved the entire process, especially the chance to co-star with the great actors Yul Brynner and Helen Hayes. It didn’t take long for everyone to realize how well-suited she was for the role of Anastasia - a downtrodden outcast shunned by society who ultimately finds redemption. Her pain and inner struggle were real. Her performance might even earn her an Academy Award, company members said.

  But Rossellini was not interested in sharing Ingrid’s happiness. “Roberto only came to see me once while I was making the picture,” Ingrid recalled. “I think a lot of people sensed that the marriage was cracking.”

  Clearly, Rossellini was struggling. His plans to go to India were again derailed by monsoons and lack of funds, but he had found a film to direct - a drama entitled Sea Wife, filmed in Jamaica and starring Richard Burton and Joan Collins. He caused the company so much aggravation, however, that producer Andre Hakim threatened to fire him. Angry, Rossellini raced to London to meet with Hakim, but it did no good. He was fired anyway and grew increasingly bitter about Ingrid’s success.

  When Anastasia was finished in August 1956, the film was rushed to editing so it could be released to theaters by December. Ingrid left London and went back to Paris to start rehearsals for Tea and Sympathy, knowing that big challenges awaited her. For one thing, the play would be in French, which was not Ingrid’s most proficient language by a long shot. But Elvira Popescu, an actress and director who managed the Théâtre de Paris and spoke French with a heavy accent, told her, “Listen, I come from Romania; if I can make it, you can make it.”

  And Rossellini’s presence added another element of volatility. “I suppose I was thinking,” Ingrid said later, “an Italian directing a Swedish actress in an American play in French for a Paris audience?”

  Rossellini, as it turns out, had a major problem with the play. Tea and Sympathy is the story of Tom Lee, a young boarding-school boy who is accused of being a homosexual. Ingrid played a woman named Laura Reynolds, married to an instructor, who tries to defend him and pursues him romantically to prove that he is straight.

  But Rossellini had always been disturbed by homosexuality. Once, when Ingrid suggested sending Robertino to a Swiss or English boarding school, he blew up. “What?” he screamed, “That’s where it all starts - in those boarding schools.”

  With rehearsals scheduled to start in a matter of days, Ingrid was working with her French teacher on the details of her dialogue when Rossellini finally decided to read the play. As he turned the pages, he grew especially upset about Ingrid’s role as the seducer of a boy. Finally, he threw the script against a wall, where it scattered across the floor.

  “It’s the most awful play I’ve ever read, and you’re not going to do it!” he thundered.

  But they had both signed contracts, Ingrid said, and she had no intention of breaking her agreement. Plus, she liked the play.

  “Like the play!” he cried. “It is going to be laughed off the boards of Paris, and it will be closed in a week.”

  “Fine,” Ingrid replied. “I’ll play one week in Paris. There are many people who’ve never played in Paris all their acting lives. I’ll play one week.”

  Rossellini stormed off and told Popescu that he wouldn’t do the play because it was terrible. Popescu said she would find someone else to direct. She may even have been relieved. Rehearsals began, but Rossellini would not stop his tirades. “You’re going to act in this stupid play!” he yelled at Ingrid. “The audience is certainly going to walk out in the middle of it!”

  On opening night, as Ingrid was in her dressing room getting ready, Rossellini said, “Be prepared when the first intermission comes for half of them to walk out.” She did not reply. Like a modern reincarnation of Joan of Arc, she simply made a little sign of the cross on his forehead, as she often did, which meant Dieu te bénisse, or God bless you. Then she went to the wings, seized with stage fright as usual, and went out and delivered a magnificent performance.

  Nobody walked out. At the end of the show, the audience leapt to its feet for a standing ovation. “I remembered when I did Joan of Lorraine in New York, I thought I’d never receive applause like that again,” Ingrid recalle
d. “But this was the same. The house went wild. You couldn’t stop them. They were standing up and screaming, standing up and applauding, and the ‘bravos’ never stopped.”

  As Ingrid took her solo bow at center stage, she turned her head to one side to look at Rossellini, standing in the wings.

  “Our eyes met,” she recalled. “We looked straight at each other. I knew then my marriage was over even though we might stay together.”

  That night, Ingrid went to a party with Rossellini and his Italian friends. Everyone laughed and carried on, but nobody talked about her incredible performance. The next day, Rossellini packed his suitcase. Ingrid went with him to the train station. “As we stood there in the noise and the smoke amid all the people,” she said later, “I had this very strange feeling that this was the end of an episode and that things would never be the same again.”

  The praise for Ingrid’s performance in Tea and Sympathy – which filled the 1,200-seat Théâtre de Paris every night – was over the top. “Magic came back to the theater last night,” read one. But that was only a taste of what was to come as Ingrid began her astonishing global comeback to popular favor.

  Even Ingrid’s occasional French slip-ups were greeted warmly by Parisian theatergoers. Once, she tried to say that Tom, the boy, is “the tennis champion of the whole school” and the audience began to laugh uproariously. One of the actors, also laughing, whispered that she had just said “champignon,” instead of “champion.” She had said the boy was the “mushroom of the whole school.”

  Ingrid began to laugh, too. Admitting her error, she held her arm high in the air and dramatically shouted the correct enunciation: “Il est le champion de l’ecole!” The audience roared and shouted, “Bravo, bravo!” It took the actors several minutes to stop laughing so they could continue the scene.

  On December 13, as Ingrid was still soaking up cheers for Tea and Sympathy, Anastasia was released – and even more ecstatic reviews followed. The film was a profound turning point in her life, she realized later – both professionally and personally – all thanks to the enthusiasm of the New York critics.

  In The New York Times, Bosley Crowther wrote, “Miss Bergman’s performance is nothing short of superb. It is a beautifully molded performance worthy of an Academy Award.”

  In the fall of 1956, the same bedazzled New York critics named Ingrid Bergman the best actress of the year. Twentieth Century-Fox, after investing so much money in the film, wanted her to go to New York for the ceremony to receive the award. It would be “try out,” they said, to see if the American public was ready to forgive her.

  Seeing a publicity bonanza, the studio was so desperate for Ingrid to go that they offered to buy up all the tickets for three performances of Tea and Sympathy – one on Saturday night and two on Sunday – so the theater would not lose money on the shows that did not feature Ingrid. The plan was for her to fly back to Paris on Monday in time for that evening’s performance.

  If she went, Ingrid would also have to figure out a way, on such a short trip, to squeeze in what would certainly be a hugely emotional visit with Pia, now an eighteen-year-old student at the University of Colorado. Rossellini was vehemently against Ingrid going to the United States – increasingly, he hated all things American – but he was far away in India making a documentary at the request of the country’s prime minister. (Their children were back in Rome being cared for by Rossellini’s extended family and hired help.) In Rossellini’s absence, his brother Renzo sent Ingrid a scolding letter saying that for her to return to the United States would be a breach of promise he claimed she made to Roberto.

  But how many Americans did not want Ingrid to return? Twentieth Century Fox’s publicity department decided to find out by suggesting to Ed Sullivan that he invite her to appear on his hugely popular variety television show. Sullivan, in turn, put the question to his viewers. “I think a lot of you think that this woman has had seven-and-a-half years of time for penance,” he told them. “Others may not think so, but whatever you think, it would help us clarify because everybody’s rung up this morning, wanting to know what the decision has been on the Ingrid Bergman appearance, and I told them what I told you: it’s entirely up to the public.” The resulting vote was 5,826 letters in her favor but 6,433 letters against. For many, all was not forgiven.

  Finally, Ingrid decided to take the plunge and go. “Take some tranquilizers with you,” her Anastasia co-star Yul Brynner told her. For the first time in her life, she did. Another old friend offered help, too. Ernest Hemingway came to her hotel in Paris and said, “Daughter, I want to come with you to New York and protect you. It’s no trouble; I can jump on that plane with you tomorrow morning, I shall be by your side. If any goddamn reporter asks you a nasty question, I shall knock him down. No one’s going to get in your way while I’m there.”

  Ingrid was touched but thought bringing an entourage of protectors, even one that included the great Hemingway, would backfire. She was afraid people would say, “Look at her dragging her defenses around with her. She’s afraid.” It was true, she admitted later. She was afraid. But she had to go alone. “That’s the only way I feel I can go back,” she said.

  On January 20, 1957, Ingrid’s flight from Paris touched down in New York’s Idlewild Airport, her first visit to the United States in eight years. She looked out the window apprehensively, wondering if there would be jeering crowds calling for her execution. Instead, she was surprised to see a small group of rabid fans called The Alvin Gang, who had been following her around for years, long before she left for Italy.

  In the airport, Ingrid held a press conference. Would she be moving back to the United States? “I’m a European,” she said. “My husband is a European. I have an Italian passport in my purse. My children are European. Why should I want to uproot them?” They also asked about rumors of trouble with Rossellini. “Whenever people ask me that I say we are separated,” she said coyly, “He’s working on a film in India, and I’m in Paris.”

  When she got to the Manhattan apartment of her old friend Irene Selznick, Ingrid realized she had to call Pia and give her the bad news. Between the film critics award, a dinner reception, an appearance on the Steve Allen TV show, an award ceremony from Look magazine and other events, she probably wouldn’t get more than an hour with her daughter – and that single, wrenching hour would probably ruin her for everything else she had to do.

  She knew she couldn’t handle the crowd of photographers and reporters just waiting for her to cry when she met with her daughter. “I couldn’t face this emotional climax,” she said later. “I’d used up all my courage just getting here. And now I hadn’t enough courage to face my daughter.”

  Ingrid hoped Pia would understand, but she most definitely did not. Her bags were already packed to go to New York. Now her mother didn’t want to see her. Clearly, her mom’s career and American friends and appearing on television were more important than her own daughter. So she unpacked her suitcase and went to class. When reporters called her, Pia said she couldn’t go because she had too much schoolwork to do. It was a wound she would carry for many years. In her memoir, Ingrid said, “I think it was one of the greatest mistakes of my life.”

  One admirer Ingrid did make time for was Robert Anderson, the thirty-nine-year-old playwright who had written Tea and Sympathy. He had recently lost his wife to cancer after a long illness, and Ingrid had invited him to Paris, where they began an affair. Both grieving – she over her crumbling marriage, he over his wife – they found comfort with each other as she was making his play a hit. In her memoir, Ingrid did not mention their affair but said, “He was very close to me in those days. Maybe I was in need, too.”

  On Sunday, Ingrid had a full day of press interviews in Swedish, German, Italian, and French. By the time she boarded the plane back to Europe on Monday, she was exhausted and moved to tears at the kindness she had been shown. Even former Senator Edwin C. Johnson, who had condemned her from the floor of the United States Senate
, was won over by Ingrid’s sincerity, saying he was happy she had come back.

  Back in Paris, two months later, Ingrid was sleeping in her room at the Raphael Hotel when she was awakened at seven o’clock in the morning by a ringing phone. It was the publicity men at Twentieth Century Fox: “You’ve won!” they shouted. “You’ve won!”

  Ingrid had won her second Academy Award, this time for Anastasia. She went to take her morning bath and have a glass of champagne to celebrate. Her seven-year-old son Robertino came into the bathroom carrying a radio and said, “Mama, they’re talking about you!” A French radio station was carrying a repeat of the Oscar ceremony in Hollywood. Robertino didn’t speak English well, but he had recognized her name as she was announced the winner for Best Actress, beating out Deborah Kerr (The King and I), Katharine Hepburn (The Rainmaker), Nancy Kelly (The Bad Seed), and Carroll Baker (Baby Doll).

  “I could still hear the applause as he put the radio on the bathroom floor,” Ingrid recalled. Then her good friend Cary Grant, who had promised to accept the award for her in case she got lucky, began his speech: “Dear Ingrid, if you can hear me now or will see this televised film later, I want you to know that each of the other nominees and all the people with whom you worked on Anastasia, and Hitch, and Leo McCarey, and, indeed, everyone here tonight, send you congratulations and love and admiration and every affectionate thought.” Robertino could not understand why his mother was crying into her bath.

  Around this time, Ingrid began spending time with a new friend, Lars Schmidt. A Swedish theater impresario, his production of Tennessee Williams’s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof was running in Paris at the same time Ingrid was appearing in Tea and Sympathy. They had met the previous December when Ingrid had come with Anderson to see Cat. Schmidt invited the couple to have champagne during intermission, but Ingrid did not recall the encounter since Schmidt was busy pouring drinks and entertaining other guests.