Liv Johanne Ullmann (born December 16, 1938 in Tokyo, Japan) is an iconic two-time Academy Award, two-time BAFTA-, Palme d'Or- nominated and Golden Globe-winning Norwegian actress and the beloved muse of legendary Swedish Academy Award winning director Ingmar Bergman.
She played lead roles in nine films by Swedish director Ingmar Bergman, with whom she has a daughter, Norwegian author and journalist Linn Ullmann. A consummate psychological actress, she was the object of considerable critical acclaim during the 1960s and 1970s (awards include three Best Actress prizes from the prestigious National Society of Film Critics, two from the National Board of Review, a threesome from the New York Film Critics Circle, and one Golden Globe as well as a LAFCA honor).
Her work with Bergman, especially in the powerful Scenes from a Marriage, turned her into a 1970s feminist and cultural icon, as well as one of the most respected actresses of her time. In addition, her natural and very photogenic Nordic red-blond beauty, fit well into the 1970s vogue. Ullmann was nominated twice for an Academy Award (for The Emigrants and Face to Face), and published two successful autobiographies (Changing and Choices) while out of work in the late 1970s.
Coincidentally, two of Ullmann's biggest flops were musical adaptations of classic works. The film version of Lost Horizon was a critical and commercial disaster, and the Broadway production of I Remember Mama underwent numerous revisions during an unusually long preview period, then closed after only 108 performances.
Recently, Ullmann has been making a name for herself as a film director too (most notably with the acclaimed, Bergman-scripted drama Faithless) and could also be seen reprising her role from Scenes from a Marriage in 2003's Saraband (Bergman's final telemovie). Faithless was close to be awarded with the prestigious Golden Palm at Cannes Film Festival, and the female lead, Swedish actress Lena Endre, won first prize for her performance in this film.
Ullmann was chairing the jury of the Cannes Film Festival in 2002. She introduced her daughter by Ingmar Bergman, Linn Ullmann, to the festival audience with these infamous words: "Here comes the woman whom Ingmar Bergman loves the most". (Her daughter was about to receive the Prize of Honour on her famous father's behalf). In 2006 Liv Ullmann publicly gave up a long-time dream of making a film based on the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen's play "A Doll's House". According to her, the Norwegian Film Fund worked against her and writer Kjetil Bjørnstad. Australian actress Cate Blanchett as well as British actress Kate Winslet was intended for lead roles in the movie.
Ullmann narrated the Canada/Norway co-produced animated short film The Danish Poet, which won the Academy Award for Animated Short Film at the 79th Academy Awards in 2007.
Ullmann was born in Tokyo (where her father, an aircraft technician, was working at the time) and grew up in Trondheim , Norway. She has also lived in Canada as a child during WW2 and now lives in Miami, Florida.
In addition to her native Norwegian, Ullmann speaks Swedish, English and other European languages, though with a heavy Norwegian/trøndersk accent. She is also a committed UNICEF goodwill ambassador and has traveled widely for the organization. She was appointed honorary doctor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology 2006. Ullmann was appointed a Commander of the Royal Norwegian Order, St. Olav, in 2005.
Ullmann has been married and divorced twice. Her first marriage was to Dr. Hans Jacob Stang, a Norwegian psychiatrist, whom she divorced in the late 1960s. According to her biographer, Ketil Bjørnstad, the marriage was marred by infidelities on both sides. In the 1980s, she married Boston real estate developer Donald Saunders, whom she divorced in 1995. Nevertheless, in 2007 the couple still live together.
She has one child, Linn Ullmann, fathered by Ingmar Bergman (according to her autobiography, Changing, 1977) but born while Ullmann still was married to her first husband, Hans Jacob Stang. Ullmann also has two grandchildren, a boy and a girl, of her daughter's two marriages.
Liv Ullmann still keeps an apartment in Oslo, Norway, as well as a summer house in Sandefjord, Norway.
Academy Award
BAFTA Award
Golden Globe Award
Other Awards
Viewed by as much as two-thirds of the population, one of Norway's most domestically successful films ever -- an important cultural event.
