Ingrid Bergman - Photos and Quotes

“I made my own image because I refused to change my name or my hair. They wanted to change me completely when I first came over because that was the standard thing to do. They took stars from Hungary, Germany, France, and tried to change them – to make them more beautiful to American eyes, I suppose. But then they became just like all the other American stars that were there. Lots of publicity stills in bathing suits and hats and all that.

“Well, ….when I came over, they started in on me: ‘The name’s impossible to pronounce,’ ‘The name’s German and there’s a war on,’ ‘You’re teeth, eyebrows and hair are wrong.’ But I said I wouldn’t change anything. I told them they had got me over here because they’d seen a picture called Intermezzo and I was here to do a remake, and I was staying how I was because that’s the way you liked me in the picture. Then they started on the publicity. But I didn’t want any of it – I wanted the public to discover me. I didn’t want to be pushed down their throats, because I’ve seen that: ‘MARVELOUS STAR FROM HOLLAND, A GREAT ACTRESS’ and then out she comes and just does what everyone else is doing.

“Well, Selznick listened and said it was a great idea. He said he’d work on the idea of a natural girl from whose head not a hair had been removed. He told makeup he’d kill anyone who touched my eyebrows. He did tests in color with no makeup on at all. However, my face was too red in the heat of the lamps, so I had to have a little makeup on. So I became the ‘natural’ star. And it was just at the right time because everything had become very artificial and all hair-dos.” – Ingrid Bergman

Source: People Will Talk by John Kobal

“The public already had me set in their minds as a type but I fought it. I have always been called the great outdoor girl but it is a big mistake.” — Ingrid Bergman

Quote date: 1982

“Happiness is good health and a bad memory.” — Ingrid Bergman

“We never thought it would be any good. The script was never ready and we had to feel our way along. And yet it became a classic.” — Ingrid Bergman

Source: John Fitzgerald (1977)

Photo: Casablanca (1942). With Humphrey Bogart.

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“If it’s a book, then I read the book carefully and read what the author has said about the character: whether she limps, smokes a lot, is deaf, how she moves. Those things I remember and try to put into a characterization and into the script. Like in For Whom the Bell Tolls there was so much description of the character in the book that didn’t appear in the film script; I used to come along and say, ‘Look, in the book it says…’ and ‘You’ve lost this beautiful line in the book…’ So they’d put it in for me. All along in my career, they’ve always told me I read too much [giggles] and that I’m too faithful to the author.” — Ingrid Bergman

Source: John Kobal’s People Will Talk

Photo: On the set of For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943)

“I’m glad they’ve written books about Ingrid Bergman movies because it helps me out to remember.” — Ingrid Bergman

Source: John Fitzgerald (1977)

Photo: Spellbound (1945)

“I don’t forget that I am a walking image. When you meet people, for instance, in an elevator, they talk about you as though you weren’t there: ‘She’s much taller than I thought she was.’ ‘Doesn’t she look nice?’ And you’re standing right next to them. They must think you’re still on the screen.” – Ingrid Bergman, who stood close to 5’10”.

Source: John Kobal’s People Will Talk
Photo: Spellbound (1945)

“There are only seven movie stars in the world whose name alone will induce American bankers to lend money for movie productions, and the only woman on the list is Ingrid Bergman.” — Cary Grant

Here [in Hollywood] it is the personality that they like, more than the performance. People popped all of us into little boxes. If they wanted someone to be a bad woman, they opened the little box marked Bette Davis. If they wanted a saintly woman, they opened the little box marked Ingrid Bergman.” — Ingrid Bergman

Source: Joyce Haber (1972)

Photo: Joan of Arc (1948)