Liv Johanne Ullmann (born 16 December 1938) is a Norwegian actress and filmmaker. Recognised as one of the greatest European actresses of all time, Ullmann is known as the muse and frequent collaborator of filmmaker Ingmar Bergman, whom she dated for five years. She acted in many of his films, including Persona (1966), The Passion of Anna (1969), Cries and Whispers (1972), Scenes from a Marriage (1973), and Autumn Sonata (1978).
Ullmann won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama in 1972 for the film The Emigrants and has been nominated for another four. 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 Bergman's Face to Face. On 25 March 2022, Ullmann was presented with an Academy Honorary Award in recognition of her "bravery and emotional transparency that has gifted audiences with deeply affecting screen portrayals".
Early life Liv Johanne Ullmann was born in Tokyo on 16 December 1938, the daughter of Norwegian parents Janna Erbe (née Lund; 1910–1996) and Erik Viggo Ullmann (1907–1945). Her father was an aircraft engineer who was working in Tokyo at the time. Her grandfather helped Jews escape from the Norwegian town where he lived during World War II, and was thus sent to the Dachau concentration camp, where he died. When Ullmann was two years old, she moved with her parents to Canada and settled in Toronto, where her father worked at the Royal Norwegian Air Force base on Toronto Islands during World War II. The family then moved to the U.S. and settled in New York City, where her father died four years later after a lengthy hospitalisation from head injuries due to being struck by an aeroplane propeller, and his death affected her greatly. Her mother worked as a bookseller while raising Ullmann and her sister alone. In 1945 they returned to Norway and lived in Trondheim.
Career
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 Helmer 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 later acted, with acclaim, in ten 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. 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. Ullmann also acted with Laurence Olivier in A Bridge Too Far (1977), directed by Richard Attenborough.
Nominated more than forty times for awards, including various lifetime achievement awards, she won the best-actress prize three times from the National Society of Film Critics and three times from the National Board of Review, received three awards from the New York Film Critics Circle, and a Golden Globe. 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 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. She also featured in the widely deprecated musical movie remake of Lost Horizon during 1973. 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."
In 1980, Brian De Palma, who directed Carrie, wanted 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, Bergman wanted Ullmann to play Emelie Ekdahl in his last feature film, Fanny and Alexander, and wrote the role with her 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 2001 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". 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. She published two autobiographies, Changing (1977) and Choices (1984).
Ullmann's first film as a director was Sofie (1992); her friend and former co-actor, Josephson, starred on it. She later directed the Bergman-composed movie Faithless (2000). Faithless garnered nominations for both the Palme d'Or and Best Actress category at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival.
In 2003, Ullmann reprised her role from Scenes from a Marriage in Saraband (2003), Bergman's final telemovie. Her previous screen role had been in the Swedish movie Zorn (1994).
In 2004, Ullmann revealed that she had received an offer in November 2003 to play in three episodes of the American television series, Sex and the City. She was amused by the offer, and said that it was one of the few programs she regularly watched, but she turned it down. Later that year, Steven Soderbergh wrote a role in the movie Ocean's Twelve especially for her, but she also turned that down.
During 2006, Ullmann announced that she had been forced to end her longtime wish of making a film based on A Doll's House. According to her statement, the Norwegian Film Fund was preventing writer Ketil Bjørnstad and her from pursuing the project. Australian actress Cate Blanchett and British actress Kate Winslet had been intended to have been cast in the main roles of the movie. She later directed Blanchett in the play A Streetcar Named Desire, by Tennessee Williams, at the Sydney Theatre Company in Sydney, which was performed September through October 2009, and then continued from 29 October to 21 November 2009 at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, where it won a Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Non-resident Production, as well as actress and supporting performer for 2009. The play was also performed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in Brooklyn, New York. Ullmann narrated the Canada–Norway co-produced animated short movie The Danish Poet (2006), which won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film at the 79th Academy Awards during 2007.
In 2008, she was the head of the jury at the 30th Moscow International Film Festival. During 2012, she attended the International Indian Film Academy Awards in Singapore, where she was honored for her Outstanding Contributions to International Cinema and she also showed her movie on her relationship with Bergman. In 2013, Ullmann directed a film adaptation of Miss Julie. The film, released in September 2014, stars Jessica Chastain, Colin Farrell, and Samantha Morton. It was widely praised by the Norwegian press. In 2018, Ullmann narrated Wars Don't End, a documentary about the Lebensborn war children.
In March 2022, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced that Ullmann would receive the Academy Honorary Award. John Lithgow presented her with the statue at the Governors Awards, saying, "For those few who claim that she never would've been called one of our greatest actors without Ingmar Bergman, I would answer, Bergman would probably never been called one of our greatest filmmakers without Liv Ullmann".
Honours and causes Ullmann is a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, and has traveled widely for the organization. She is also co-founder and honorary chair of the Women's Refugee Commission.
In 2005, King Harald V of Norway made Ullmann a Commander with Star of the Order of St. Olav.
Ullmann received an honorary degree, a doctorate of philosophy, from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in 2006.
Personal life
Ullmann was married to Norwegian psychiatrist Hans Jakob Stang from 1960 until they divorced in 1965. She was with Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman from 1965 to 1970, becoming his muse and frequent collaborator. They had a daughter, writer Linn Ullmann (born 1966), whose son Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel (born 1990) became a filmmaker.
In 1985, Ullman married American real estate developer Donald Richard Saunders from Boston, and they divorced in 1995 but remained in a relationship.
Performances and works Film As actress Year Title Role Director Notes 1957 Fjols til fjells Hotel GuestEdith Carlmar Uncredited extra 1959 The Wayward Girl Gerd 1962 Tonny Kari Nils R. Müller Per Gjersøe Kort är sommaren 1965 De kalte ham Skarven Wilfred Breistrand Erik Folke Gustavson 1966 Persona Elisabet VoglerIngmar Bergman1968 Hour of the Wolf Alma Borg Shame Eva Rosenberg 1969 An-Magritt An-Magritt Arne Skouen The Passion of Anna Anna Fromm Ingmar Bergman 1970 Cold Sweat Fabienne Martin Terence Young1971 Kristina Nilsson Jan Troell Ester Jenks László Benedek1972 The New Land Kristina Nilsson Jan Troell Cries and Whispers Maria (and her mother) Ingmar Bergman Pope Joan Pope Joan Michael Anderson1973 Scenes from a Marriage Marianne Ingmar Bergman 40 Carats Ann Stanley Milton Katselas Lost Horizon Catherine Charles Jarrott1974 Zandy's Bride Hannah Lund Jan Troell Queen Christina Anthony Harvey 1975 Léonor Léonor Juan Luis Buñuel 1976 Face to Face Dr. Jenny IsakssonIngmar Bergman1977 Manuela Rosenberg Kate ter Horst Richard Attenborough 1978 Autumn Sonata Eva Andergast Ingmar Bergman 1979 Players Tennis Spectator Anthony Harvey Uncredited cameo 1980 Richard's Things Kate Morris1984 The Wild Duck Gina Henri Safran Jenny Campbell Daniel Petrie Dangerous Moves Marina Fromm Richard Dembo 1986 Let's Hope It's a Girl Elena Leonardi Mario Monicelli1987 Gaby: A True Story Sari Brimmer Luis Mandoki Farewell Moscow Ida Nudel Mauro Bolognini 1988 The Girlfriend María Jeanine Meerapfel 1989 The Rose Garden Gabriele Schlüter-Freund Fons Rademakers 1990 Mindwalk Sonia Hoffman Bernt Capra 1991 Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes Narrator George Levenson Voice; short film1992 Katherine Vilmos Zsigmond The Ox Mrs. Gustafsson Sven Nykvist 1994 Dreamplay Ticket Seller Unni Straume 2003 Saraband Marianne Ingmar Bergman 2006 Narrator Torill Kove Voice; short film 2008 Through a Glass, Darkly Grandmother Jesper W. Nielsen 2009 Sinna mann Mother Anita Killi Voice; English version2012 Two Lives Åse Evensen Georg Mass Judith Kaufmann Liv & Ingmar Herself Dheeraj Akolkar Documentary 2018 Wars Don't End Narrator Voice; documentary
As director Year Film Distribution 1992 Sofie Pathé 1995 Kristin Lavransdatter HVE Entertainment 1996 Private Confessions Sveriges Television 2000 Faithless AB Svensk Filmindustri 2014 Miss Julie Columbia TriStar
Television