Liv Ullmann

Ullmann was born in Tokyo, Japan, the daughter of Norwegian parents, Erik Viggo Ullmann (1907–1945), an aircraft engineer who was working in Tokyo at the time, and Janna Erbe (née Lund; 1910–1996).

Her grandfather was sent to the Dachau concentration camp during World War II for helping Jews escape from the town where he lived in Norway; he died in this camp.

When she was two years old, the family moved to Toronto, Ontario, Canada, where her father worked at the Norwegian air force base on Toronto Island (in Lake Ontario) during the Second World War.

The family moved to New York, where four years later, her father died after a lengthy hospitalization from head injuries due to being struck by an airplane propeller, his death affecting her greatly.

Her mother worked as a bookseller, while raising two daughters.

They eventually moved to Norway, settling in Trondheim.

Liv Johanne Ullmann (born 16 December 1938) is a Norwegian actress.

Recognised as one of the greatest European actresses of all time, Ullmann is known as the muse and frequent partner of filmmaker Ingmar Bergman.

Ullmann began her acting career as a stage actress in Norway during the mid-1950s.

She continued to act in theatre for most of her career and became noted for her portrayal of Nora in Henrik Ibsen's play A Doll's House.

She became better known once she started to work with Swedish movie director Ingmar Bergman.

She acted in many of his films, including Persona (1966), Cries and Whispers (1972), Scenes from a Marriage (1973), The Passion of Anna (1969), and Autumn Sonata (1978).

She later acted, with acclaim, in 10 of his movies, including Persona (1966), The Passion of Anna (1969), Cries and Whispers (1972), and Autumn Sonata (1978), in the last of which her co-actress Ingrid Bergman resumed her own Swedish cinema career.

During 1971, Ullmann was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for the movie The Emigrants, and again during 1976 for the movie Face to Face.

Ullmann won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama in 1972 for the film The Emigrants and has been nominated for another four.

She co-acted often with Swedish actor and fellow Bergman collaborator Erland Josephson, with whom she made the Swedish television drama Scenes from a Marriage (1973), which was also edited to feature-movie length and distributed theatrically.

She also featured in the widely deprecated musical movie remake of Lost Horizon during 1973.

Ullmann made her New York City stage debut in 1975 also in A Doll's House.

Appearances in Anna Christie and Ghosts followed, as well as the less than successful musical version of I Remember Mama.

This show, composed by Richard Rodgers, experienced numerous revisions during a long preview period, then closed after 108 performances.

Ullmann acted with Laurence Olivier in A Bridge Too Far (1977), directed by Richard Attenborough.

Nominated more than 40 times for awards, including various lifetime achievement awards, she won the best actress prize three times from the National Society of Film Critics, three times from the National Board of Review, received three awards from the New York Film Critics Circle, and a Golden Globe.

In 1977, when she appeared on Broadway at the Imperial Theatre in Eugene O'Neill's Anna Christie, The New York Times said that she "glowed with despair and hope, and was everything one could have wished her to have been" in a performance "not to be missed and never to be forgotten", with her "grace and authority" that was "perhaps more than Garbo...born for Anna Christie:--Or more properly, Anna Christie was born for her."

She published two autobiographies, Changing (1977) and Choices (1984).

In 1980, Brian De Palma, who directed Carrie, wanted Liv Ullmann to play the role of Kate Miller in the erotic crime thriller Dressed to Kill and offered it to her, but she declined because of the violence.

The role subsequently went to Angie Dickinson.

In 1982, Ingmar Bergman wanted Ullmann to play Emelie Ekdahl in his last feature film, Fanny and Alexander, and wrote the role with this in mind.

She declined it, feeling the role was too sad.

She later stated in interviews that turning it down was one of the few things she really regretted.

During 1984, she was chairperson of the jury at the 34th Berlin International Film Festival, and during 2001 chaired the jury of the Cannes Film Festival.

She introduced her daughter, Linn Ullmann, to the audience with the words: "Here comes the woman whom Ingmar Bergman loves the most".

Ullmann's first film as a director was Sofie (1992); her friend and former co-actor, Erland Josephson, starred on it.

Her previous screen role had been in the Swedish movie Zorn (1994).

In 2000, she was nominated for the Palme d'Or for her second directorial feature film, Faithless.

She has received two BAFTA Award nominations, and two nominations for the Academy Award for Best Actress, for The Emigrants and Ingmar Bergman's Face to Face.

On March 25, 2022, Ullmann was presented with an Honorary Academy Award in recognition of her "bravery and emotional transparency that has gifted audiences with deeply affecting screen portrayals".

She later directed the Bergman-composed movie Faithless (2000).

Faithless garnered nominations for both the Palme d'Or and Best Actress category at the Cannes Film Festival.

In 2003, Ullmann reprised her role for Scenes from a Marriage in Saraband (2003), Bergman's final telemovie.

Her daughter was there to receive the Prize of Honour on behalf of her father; she would return to serve the jury herself during 2011.