Mai Elisabeth Zetterling (Swedish pronunciation:[ˈmajːˈsɛ̂tːɛˌɭɪŋ]; 24 May 1925 – 17 March 1994)[1] was a Swedish film director, novelist and actress.[2][3][4][5][6]
Early life
Zetterling was born in
Västerås, Sweden to a
working class family.[7] She started her career as an actor at the age of 17 at the
Royal Dramatic Theatre, the Swedish national theatre, appearing in war-era films.
Career
Zetterling appeared in film and television productions spanning six decades from the 1940s to the 1990s. Her breakthrough as an actress came in the 1944 film Torment written for her[8] by
Ingmar Bergman, in which she played a controversial role as a tormented shopgirl. Shortly afterwards she moved to England and gained instant success there with her title role in
Basil Dearden's Frieda (1947) playing opposite
David Farrar.[9]
After a brief return to Sweden in which she worked with Bergman again in his film Music in Darkness (1948), she returned to Britain and starred in a number of UK films. Some of her notable films as an actress include Quartet (1948), a film based on some of
W. Somerset Maugham's short stories, The Romantic Age (1949) directed by
Edmond T. Gréville, Only Two Can Play (1962) co-starring
Peter Sellers and directed by
Sidney Gilliat, and The Witches (1990), an adaptation of
Roald Dahl's book directed by
Nicolas Roeg. Having gained a reputation as a
sex symbol in dramas and thrillers, she was equally effective in comedies, and was active in British television in the 1950s and 1960s.[9]
In 1960 she appeared in Danger Man as Nadia in the episode "The Sisters".[10]
She began directing and publishing novels and non-fiction in the early 1960s, her films starting with political documentaries and a short film titled The War Game (1963), which was nominated for a
BAFTA award, and won a Silver Lion at Venice, both for the Best Short Film. Her directorial feature film debut Älskande par (1964, "Loving Couples"), based on the novels of
Agnes von Krusenstjerna, caused a scandal at the
1965 Cannes Film Festival for its sexual explicitness and nudity.[11]Kenneth Tynan of The Observer later called it "one of the most ambitious debuts since Citizen Kane". It was not the only film she made that caused controversy for its frank sexuality.[12]
When critics reviewing her debut feature stated that "Mai Zetterling directs like a man",[13] she began to explore feminist themes more explicitly in her work. The Girls, which had an all-star Swedish cast that included
Bibi Andersson and
Harriet Andersson, discussed women's liberation (or lack thereof) in a society controlled by men, as the protagonists compare their lives to characters in the play Lysistrata, and find that things have not progressed very much for women since ancient times. In 1966, she appeared as a storyteller on the BBC children's programme Jackanory, and in
five episodes narrated
Tove Jansson's Finn Family Moomintroll.[14]
Personal life
Zetterling was married to Norwegian actor
Tutte Lemkow from 1944 to 1953. They had a daughter, Etienne and a son, Louis, who is professor of environmental
sociology at the
Autonomous University of Barcelona. She published an
autobiography, All Those Tomorrows.[15] From 1958 to 1979, she was married to British author
David Hughes, who collaborated with her on her first films as director.
Documents at the National Archives in London show that, as a member of the
Hollywood Left, she was watched by
MI5 as a suspected
Communist. It did not hamper her career, however.[16][17]
Death
On 17 March 1994, a year after her final role on television, Zetterling died from
cancer at her home in London. She was 68 years old.[7][18][19]