EDITORIAL by Mary Hutchings

This has been a fruitful year for me, personally, thanks mainly to reader response to my writings on the internet and to contacts made through guest books. I have made many new friends, with whom to exchange news and views about Ingrid and her films. E-mailing these friends has now been added to my list of hobbies! Interest in Ingrid is kept alive mainly through her films and books, but also through the exchange of ideas - we all see things we had not noticed before, in different films, and this adds colour and depth to our knowledge. I would like to thank John Massey for setting up the Bergmania Mailing List: here we can enjoy a more light-heated approach to Ingrid and can even "have a go" at her detractors and fellow actresses [the green eye of jealousy reared its head where many of them were concerned!]. The mailing list is restricted to subscribers, so we are not being unprofessional.

Thanks are also due to Billy Hicks for his continually developing web site and to Willem Smit, who has supplied Billy with some fabulous photographs of Ingrid this year. These are mostly from "Joan of Arc" [Billy now has two galleries devoted to this film], but there is also a substantial number from "The Inn of the Sixth Happiness" and "Indiscreet". Willem will not mind if I tell you that "Indiscreet" is his favourite film and London, its location, his favourite city!

Thank you, as always, to Matt for such a professional web page!

A new web site has appeared since the last issue, run by Ken Grygienc. It is called The Ingrid Bergman Shrine and can be reached through a link from The Complete Ingrid Bergman Page. Ken is only twenty years old - living proof that Ingrid is gaining new, young fans.

A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to our readers - or, as the Swedes say, "God Jul och Gott Nytt Ar!" [Sorry I cannot put the little o above the A on my keyboard]

NEWS

We are less lucky in Britain, which is why I am able to write a bit more about the films we DO see!

A recent edition of "Hello" magazine featured the following amongst its short news items:" A Ferrari 212 Pinin Farina Coupe sports car given as a wedding gift to Ingrid Bergman by her husband Roberto Rossellini is expected to fetch anything up to $250,000 at auction in Beverly Hills". There is no information about how it GOT to America - probably, like the Yellow Rolls Royce, it was shipped!

Welsh film star Sir Anthony Hopkins has given £1 million to help the National Trust buy Snowdon. The trust has to raise £3 million to secure the peak, which is the highest in Wales. Much of "The Inn" was filmed either on this mountain or in its shadow, so I think we all hope that it will be bought by the Trust, so that any unpleasant developments by property speculators will be prevented. It is a most beautiful part of Wales. I know I am biased, being a "INN" nut - but it really IS lovely scenery.

Ingrid's actress daughter, Isabella Rossellini, continues to develop her career. Her latest film is "Left Luggage", a film which diverges from the Hollywood main stream. In it she plays a Hassidic Jewish mother. She was interviewed recently on Britain's Channel 4 television station and talked in a lively, intelligent and somewhat bohemian way about her earlier movies and this new film. She said that this was a tough assignment for her and she had studied the role carefully , but not once did she mention that her famous mother had also played a Jewish woman - with tremendous success - in her glorious "A Woman Called Golda". I was sorry about this, but can only infer that Ms Rossellini would rather not be thought of as "Ingrid Bergman's daughter" - and this is understandable. Incidentally, for that interview Isabella was wearing a dark blue Chinese tunic - not unlike the tunics worn by Ingrid in "The Inn" - coincidence or intention??????? I can't help adding, too, that a short clip from Isabella's new film was shown: she was wearing a scarf, which hid her short-cropped black hair and her facial resemblance to her mother was startling!

There is a web site devoted to the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. It's worth a visit to see the phenomenal list of famous people who have lived there. At the top of the list comes Ingrid, but I have found out why she is not mentioned yet. English Heritage is responsible for placing those blue plaques on the homes of famous people and a person has to have been dead for twenty years before they will consider placing a plaque on the building. So, we have four years to wait! You can be sure that I shall be counting down the days and I'll be writing to English Heritage at the earliest possible moment!

WHAT THE BRITISH PRESS SAYS ABOUT INGRID'S FILMS ON TELEVISION

From Barry Norman's Film Guide in "Radio Times"
JOAN OF ARC [only two stars!]
"Victor Fleming, who made Gone With The Wind and The Wizard of Oz, had a serious crush on Ingrid Bergman. He also directed this costly farrago, effectively a Technicoloured love letter to Bergman, who had played the role on stage. The result is a dull comic-strip history lesson with only Jose Ferrer as the Dauphin emerging with credit among the support. But, to be fair, Bergman looks radiant." [Note from Mary: Barry Norman is noted for his tongue in cheek cynicism. His final sentence saved him from a barbed letter from me!!!!]

From The Daily Mail, Tuesday 15th December 1998
SPELLBOUND Sky Cinema
"Made in 1945 when psychoanalysis was still new, this superb Hitchcock thriller deals realistically with the study of the mind while creating some powerful imagery and a palpable level of suspense. Ingrid Bergman is the psychoanalyst who falls in love with her new boss Gregory Peck and then, when it transpires that he is an amnesiac who may also be a killer, determines to do all she can to unlock his memory" No real review here, except to tell viewers that the film is EXCELLENT, and a similar precis of the plot in "Radio Times" merely describes Ingrid as "dewy-eyed" - Hmmmm!!! I think there was rather more to her performance than that.

The 30 minute documentary "Great Romances of the Twentieth Century" [Ingrid Bergman and Roberto Rossellini], was shown on BBC2 before "Joan of Arc". It's a little treasure, as it contains some delightful clips from interviews with the mature Ingrid, including a tiny bit from the elusive National Film Theatre Guardian Lecture. It deals straightforwardly with Ingrid's Hollywood career, then with Rossellini's career prior to their meeting. Briefly it tells of the films they made together, singling out "Voyage To Italy" as an enduring work of art, and of Ingrid's "renaissance" through her great films "Anastasia", "Indiscreet" and "The Inn of the Sixth Happiness".

MEMORIES OF SUMMER: HOLIDAY IN FJALLBACKA by LENA NICKLASSON

We came to Fjallbacka a grey day in July. The rain was pouring down and it was quite cold for a summer day. But yet the place was charming with all the little houses and the boats in the harbour. There were lovely little streets with low cottages so typical for the small coast villages in Sweden. One of them leading from the water and up to the churchway was called the Bergman Street. Down by the harbour the Ingrid Bergman Square is situated and across the street a statue of her is standing below a high cliff. Yes, Fjallbacka is really an idyllic place. It is a small village and in the winter when all the summer guests have gone home it is a sleepy place. And then when the sun comes the summer guests arrive and the village is seething with life again.

A friend of mine who spent much time in Fjallbacka back in the time when Ingrid was still alive told me that the village people were very loyal to Ingrid and never told the Press when she visited Dannholmen and Fjallbacka. They cared for her and wanted her to have her privacy. Dannholmen is a private island and strangers are not allowed to go ashore but the journalists drew their boats along the island to get some pictures. This the people in Fjallbacka wanted her to be spared.

Although the weather was not the best I fell in love with Fjallbacka, and one thing I know for sure, next summer I'll be back in Fjallbacka again.
Lena Nicklasson

HOW DID YOU BECOME A FAN?

"When my mother recently passed away, my father gave me many of her old things he no longer wanted. Feeling a bit depressed one day, I started watching one of her movies, which happened to be "The Inn of the Sixth Happiness". I was instantly inspired and my bad mood disappeared! Though I had seen some of Ingrid Bergman's films before, they had never touched my heart so much as "The Inn of the Sixth Happiness" did that day. Now I consider myself a huge fan of Ingrid Bergman"

FROM PEG LOWE [Originally published on the mailing list]:
" Did you know that there is a rose "Ingrid"? - it is a deep red and was marketed soon after her death; the late Geoff Hamilton of "Gardeners' World" [BBC Television] introduced it. He was so lovely - he placed a lily "Jeanne d'Arc" beside it with a smile, saying "There, don't they look lovely together!". I think he wished to express his feelings to other friends of hers. He became my favourite presenter on television thereafter!" Thank you , Peg! Peg has been my friend for over thirty years and was one of "The Cambridge Theatre Gang". She is, in my opinion, Ingrid's most loyal fan, having seen all the films from "Intermezzo" onwards. It was "Joan of Arc" which really touched her most deeply, though and, all alone, Peg visited the places in France associated with Joan. She drove her van and camped in a little tent - something which a lone woman could not do these days. In 1956 Peg visited Sweden, travelling on the SS Patricia [she said she hated the North Sea crossing!]. She saw all the places in Stockholm associated with Ingrid and then travelled to the north of Sweden. Peg's undying [and undivided] love for Ingrid is something which I greatly admire.

A photo of the Ingrid rose appears on the miscellaneous section of The Complete Ingrid Bergman Page and I have another photograph of it, sent to me by Willem. If anyone would like a copy of Willem's photo, I can send it as a file attachment. It is in jpg. format and you will need photo-editing software which supports this.

DESPERATELY SEEKING!

INGRID'S LONDON

Earth has not anything to shew more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This city now doth like a garment wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendor valley, rock, or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!

Mary. December 1998 Please send your comments and contributions for future issues of The Ingrid Chronicle to me at: mhutchings@taunton-cyber.co.uk