Liv Johanne Ullmann (born 16 December 1938) is a Norwegian actress and film director, as well as one of the "muses" of the Swedish director Ingmar Bergman. A winner of the Golden Globe, Ullmann has also been nominated for the Palme d'Or, two times for the Academy Award, and a BAFTA Award.

Life

Ullmann was born in Tokyo, Japan, the daughter of Janna and Viggo Ullmann, an aircraft engineer who was working in Tokyo at the time. Ullmann grew up in Trondheim, Norway. She lived in Canada as a child during World War II. She resides in Miami, Florida.

Career

Liv Ullmann began her acting career on the Norwegian stage in the mid 1950s. She continued to act in the theatre for most of her career, and became noted for her portrayal of Nora in Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House, but became wider known once she started to work with the great Swedish film director, Ingmar Bergman. She went on to act to significant acclaim in ten of his most admired films, including Persona in 1966, The Passion of Anna in 1969, Cries and Whispers in 1972, and Autumn Sonata, in which her co-star, Ingrid Bergman, made her return to Swedish cinema. She co-starred often with Swedish actor and other frequent Bergman collaborator, Erland Josephson, with whom she made the 1973 Swedish television drama, Scenes from a Marriage, which was also edited to feature-film length and distributed theatrically. Ullmann appeared with Laurence Olivier in Richard Attenborough's A Bridge Too Far in 1977.

Nominated more than 40 times for awards, including various Lifetime Achievement Awards, she won the Best Actress prize three times from the National Society of Film Critics, and twice from the National Board of Review, received three awards from the New York Film Critics Circle, and a Golden Globe. In 1971, Ullmann was nominated for the Best Actress Academy Award for The Emigrants, and again in 1976 and for Face to Face.

In 1973 Ullmann made her New York stage debut in the unsuccessful Broadway revival of I Remember Mama. The show underwent numerous revisions during a long preview period, then closed after 108 performances. She also starred in the nearly universally panned film version of Lost Horizon in 1973.

Ullmann's first film as a director was 1992's Sofie, in which she directed her friend and former co-star, Erland Josephson. She went on to direct the Bergman-penned Faithless and in 2003 reprised her role from Scenes from a Marriage in Saraband, Bergman's final telemovie. Faithless garnered nominations for both the Palme d'Or and Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival.

In 1984, she was headed the jury at the 34th Berlin International Film Festival, and in 2002 chaired the jury of Cannes Film Festival. She introduced her daughter, Linn Ullmann, to the audience with the words: "Here comes the woman whom Ingmar Bergmann loves the most". Her daughter was there to receive the Prize of Honour on behalf of her father; she would return to take a place on the jury herself in 2011. In 2006 Ullmann announced that she'd been forced to give up on her dream of making a film based on A Doll's House. According to her statement, the Norwegian Film Fund was blocking her and writer Kjetil Bjørnstad from pursuing the project. Australian actress Cate Blanchett and British actress Kate Winslet had been cast intended in the lead roles in the movie. She later directed Blanchett in A Streetcar Named Desire (play) at the Sydney Theatre Company in Australia, which ran September through October 2009, and then continued from 29 October to 21 November 2009 at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC, where it won Helen Hayes Awards for Outstanding Non-resident Production as well as actress and supporting performer for 2009. The play was also mounted at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York.

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.

On 10 December 2010, Ullmann participated in the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize Ceremony. She read "I have no Enemies," the words of 2010 Peace Prize Laureate Liu Xiaobo, a human rights advocate imprisoned in China. In Mr. Liu's absence, the medal and diploma were placed on an empty chair on the stage.

She published two autobiographies, Changing and Choices in the late 1970s, during which time she became a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador.

Private life

In addition to Norwegian, Ullmann speaks Swedish, English and other European languages. She 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. In 2006, she received a PhD honoris causa from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.

Ullmann has been married and divorced twice. Her first marriage was to Hans Jacob Stang, a Norwegian psychiatrist, whom she divorced in 1965. 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. The couple continued to live together until 2007.

She has one child, Linn Ullmann, fathered by Ingmar Bergman in 1966; the two lived together for five years. Ullmann has two grandchildren, a boy and a girl, of her daughter's two marriages.

Filmography

Year Title Role Notes

As actress

1962 Tonny Kari Entered into the 12th Berlin International Film Festival

1966 Persona Elisabet Vogler

1968 Shame Eva Rosenberg Guldbagge Award for Best Actress

National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress

National Board of Review Award for Best Actress

1968 Hour of the Wolf Alma Borg National Board of Review Award for Best Actress

1969 The Passion of Anna Anna Fromm

1971 The Emigrants Kristina Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama

Nominated—Academy Award for Best Actress

1971 The Night Visitor Ester Jenks

1972 The New Land Kristina

1972 Cries and Whispers Maria (and her mother) New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress

1972 Pope Joan Pope Joan

1973 Scenes from a Marriage Marianne David di Donatello Award for Best Foreign Actress

National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress

New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress

Nominated—BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role

Nominated—Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama

1973 40 Carats Ann Stanley Nominated—Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy

1973 Lost Horizon Katherine

1974 Zandy's Bride Hannah Lund

1974 The Abdication Queen Kristina

1976 Face to Face Dr. Jenny Isaksson Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress

National Board of Review Award for Best Actress

New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress

Nominated—Academy Award for Best Actress

Nominated—BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role

Nominated—Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama

1977 The Serpent's Egg Manuela Rosenberg

1977 A Bridge Too Far Kate Ter Horst

1978 Autumn Sonata Eva David di Donatello Award for Best Foreign Actress

1980 Richard's Things Kate Morris

1984 The Bay Boy Mrs. Campbell

1986 Let's Hope It's a Girl Elena

1987 Gaby: A True Story Sari

1987 Farewell Moscow Ida Nudel David di Donatello Award for Best Foreign Actress

1988 La amiga María San Sebastián International Film Festival Award for Best Actress

1988 A Time of Indifference Maria Grazia (TV)

1989 The Rose Garden Gabriele Nominated—Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama

1991 Mindwalk Sonia Hoffman

1991 Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes Narrator (voice)

1992 The Long Shadow Katherine

1992 The Ox Mrs. Gustafsson

1994 Drømspel Ticket Seller

1994 Zorn Emma Zorn (TV)

2003 Saraband Marianne (TV)

2006 The Danish Poet Narrator (voice)

2008 I et speil, i en gåte Grandmother

Year Film Notes

As director

1992 Sofie Montreal World Film Festival Special Grand Prize of the Jury

Montreal World Film Festival Prize of the Ecumenical Jury

Montreal World Film Festival Most Popular Film

1995 Kristin Lavransdatter (from the novel by Sigrid Undset)

1996 Private Confessions Nominated—Chicago International Film Festival Gold Hugo

Screened at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival

2000 Faithless Amanda Ecumenical Film Award

Goya Award for Best European Film

Nominated—Palme d'Or, 2000 Cannes Film Festival

Nominated—Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Director