THE INGRID CHRONICLE: AUTUMN AND WINTER 2002

EDITORIAL By Mary Hutchings

It’s difficult to believe that Ingrid has been gone twenty years now. Some of us on the Yahoo Group remembered her birthday on August 29th, but we didn’t manage to have a chat room session this year. By now, English Heritage should have put a blue plaque on the house in Cheyne Gardens where Ingrid lived during the last years of her life and where she died. I am going to check the Borough of Kensington and Chelsea website.

In Britain the BBC television remembered Ingrid’s birthday with two films: “Spellbound” and “Indiscreet”. A good and varied choice, both films being particularly well-loved by fans and both having done a great deal of good to Ingrid’s career, though at times wide apart in the history of that amazing career.

More Ingrid films are now available on DVD, from various websites. In England, Choices Direct of Peterborough now has the following: Intermezzo, Spellbound, Notorious, Casablanca, Indiscreet, Cactus Flower. A bigger range is available through American websites. What a shame that some of Ingrid’s greatest achievements are still not available on DVD: the Sixth Happiness, Anastasia etc. I am pleased, though, that her seminal work June Night IS available.

Ingrid’s daughters, Ms Pia Lindstrom and Ms Isabella Rossellini continue to work in the public eye and to be as photogenic as ever. See below. I am so pleased that details of Isabella’s career, together with many photos, can be seen on Michelle Fryou’s excellent website, Isabella and Ingrid – thank you, Michelle!!!!!

Once again, this edition will be written entirely by me. It’s not what I wish. I would like to have contributions from other fans, but none has been forthcoming this time. Please do write something for the next edition and e-mail it to me!!!!!

NEWS
Ingrid’s famous daughter, Isabella Rossellini, has succeeded again! She has signed with the house of Viyella to model their new range of knitwear and coats. Viyella is a famous and traditional manufacturer of stylish knitwear and Isabella is the obvious choice as their model. Photos of Isabella wearing this year’s latest from Viyella appeared in HELLO magazine recently and will soon be up on Michelle’s website.
Isabella has also appeared in the television mini series “Napoleon”. Again, see Michelle’s site for many photos.
Isabella also recently published a second book! Its title is “Looking At Me”. How about “Here’s Looking at you, Isabella”? But I think Isabella would have felt that was too reminiscent of a certain famous film starring her mother!
Pia Lindstrom recently hosted a charity event in her own home in New York. It was in aid of the American equivalent of “Guide Dogs for the Blind”. Pia has always loved animals and has owned several dogs herself. Photos of Pia as a child often show a dog with her in the garden, from the days of the Beverly Hills home in Benedict Canyon Drive, to the time when she lived with Ingrid in France and Italy.
Pia and Isabella were photographed at the first night of a play about the friendship between actress Anna Magnani and the playwright Tennessee Williams.
We don’t see anything of Ingrid Junior, but assume she is still studying and working as a professor of Italian Renaissance Literature in New York . Young Ingrid’s son, Tomasso Rossellini, is a student himself now and she also has a young daughter, Francesca.
We assume that Robertino still lives in Monaco. Come out of hiding, Robertino, and let us have news of you!

MOVING MOMENTS……..
I am sure we can all think of many moving moments in Ingrid’s films, but here’s my choice for this edition of Chronicle.
I have picked that scene in “A Woman Called Golda”, where Ingrid is visiting the refugee camp in Cyprus. This was where many Jews ended up after the Second World War. Having been freed from the concentration camps in Europe, they were on their way to a new life in their own homeland, Israel, but were prevented from getting there. Golda goes to one of the camps to see the conditions and to ascertain whether, perhaps, the children only should be allowed to continue the journey to Israel. So disturbed is Golda by the plight of all of the people there that she cries openly and moves away to the edge of the camp to grieve. Then some of the children approach her with flowers, which they have made from coloured paper. They tell her that they have never seen REAL flowers. This moves and upsets Golda even more. The scene with the children gathering round Ingrid is rather reminiscent of a similar scene in “The Inn”, but is totally moving in itself. Golda’s incredulity at the fact that they have never seen real flowers, shows deeply on Ingrid’s face.
Watch “Golda” again as soon as you can and I think you’ll agree about this scene.

HAVE YOU NOTICED?

Have you noticed that, in Ingrid’s Swedish comedy film, “Dollar”, she wears a very fetching kaftan-type robe, which is Chinese in design and has toggle fastenings…………so very similar to the lovely crimson dress which Ingrid wore at the Mandarin’s feast in “The Inn of the Sixth Happiness” many years later. Small world!

REGENT’S PARK, LONDON

Should you be passing Regent’s Park, drop in and look at the rose garden – at the right season, of course. You’ll see there The Ingrid Bergman Rose. As we all know, this is a rich, deep red and is lovely in itself. Whoever chose it and named it did so with good reason and perfect good taste, but………..Ingrid didn’t like red roses and ordered them to be taken out of her dressing room, whenever she was working in the theatre. Never mind! We are sure she loved yellow ones, as Cary Grant obviously thought, in “Indiscreet”!!!!!!

CHOICE OF POEM in honour of Ingrid

The Night of August 29th, 1982

So silently we seemed to speak-
So slowly moved about!
As we had lent her half our powers
To eke her living out!

Our very hopes belied our fears
Our fears our hopes belied-
We thought her dying when she slept,
And sleeping when she died!

For when the morn came dim and sad-
And chill with early showers,
Her quiet eyelids closed – she had
Another morn than ours!

[From The Death Bed by Thomas Hood]

Sorry if that was rather too sad, but I thought it appropriate, as this is the first Chronicle since the twentieth anniversary.
We should not be sad, but be happy that we have Ingrid’s films and interviews and can see her on video and DVD whenever we like!!!!

I hope you have enjoyed reading this edition.
If you have any questions or ideas, please e-mail me: Mary@ingrid67.freeserve.co.uk