March 24, 2014
When this A++ list actress and multiple Oscar winner arrived the US to appear in her first film outside of her home country, Hollywood execs were startled at how controlling and abusive her husband was. At a party to celebrate her new contract, her husband barked orders at her like a military general and his wife obediently followed his orders, robot-like. There was that time she arrived at the studio with her face black and blue from a night of beatings. The couple's daughter saw everything and was threatened with violence by her father if she told anyone. The actress found solace in the arms of several men including the married mogul who brought her to Hollywood, the A++ Oscar winning married actor/co-star who would soon ditch her for the love of his life and that future Oscar winning actor/co-star who was then almost A-list. It was no big surprise in Hollywood when she finally got the guts to leave her husband for that foreign born director, although some of the conservative power players in Tinseltown made it their mission to bring her down and at first they succeeded but the actress proved them wrong in a big way.
Ingrid Bergman, husband: Petter Lindstrom; daughter: Pia Lindstrom; conservative power players: Hedda Hopper, William Randolph Hearst and Louella Parsons; men she found solace in: David O. Selznick, Spencer Tracy [left her for Katharine Hepburn] and Gregory Peck; director: Roberto Rossellini; how she proved them wrong: won the Oscar for 'Anastasia ['56]
When this A++ list actress and multiple Oscar winner arrived the US to appear in her first film outside of her home country, Hollywood execs were startled at how controlling and abusive her husband was. At a party to celebrate her new contract, her husband barked orders at her like a military general and his wife obediently followed his orders, robot-like. There was that time she arrived at the studio with her face black and blue from a night of beatings. The couple's daughter saw everything and was threatened with violence by her father if she told anyone. The actress found solace in the arms of several men including the married mogul who brought her to Hollywood, the A++ Oscar winning married actor/co-star who would soon ditch her for the love of his life and that future Oscar winning actor/co-star who was then almost A-list. It was no big surprise in Hollywood when she finally got the guts to leave her husband for that foreign born director, although some of the conservative power players in Tinseltown made it their mission to bring her down and at first they succeeded but the actress proved them wrong in a big way.
Ingrid Bergman, husband: Petter Lindstrom; daughter: Pia Lindstrom; conservative power players: Hedda Hopper, William Randolph Hearst and Louella Parsons; men she found solace in: David O. Selznick, Spencer Tracy [left her for Katharine Hepburn] and Gregory Peck; director: Roberto Rossellini; how she proved them wrong: won the Oscar for 'Anastasia ['56]
Love her.
ReplyDeleteGave me chills reading that.
ReplyDeleteDidn't they make it sound like she abandoned her daughter for some dick at the time? What a terrible situation.
ReplyDeleteEveryone knew this was Ingrid Bergman, but there was lots of dissent on who A++ Oscar winner was--most people (including me) thought it was Bogie/Bacall instead of Tracy/Hepburn.
ReplyDeleteDid Enty not reveal Tracy and Hepburn bearded each other in some blinds?
ReplyDeleteThat never made sense to me. Spencer Tracy was married, he didn't need Katharine to bread for him. I don't know if she needed a beard or not, but you'd think the studios would find her someone a bit less scandalous than a married man. I prefer to believe they really were the love's of each other's lives.
DeleteSpencer Tracy was gay. Hepburn was his beard, Tracy was her beard, since she was a lesbian.
DeleteThe most beautiful woman in the history of the movies.
ReplyDeleteFrom everything Ive read Hopper, Hearst and Parsons were complete POSs. Power mad egomaniscs the media 's version of J Edgar Hoover.
ReplyDeleteLMAO. He also didn't need her to pretend to be his girlfriend, who made bread for him.
ReplyDeleteGossip columnists doing the bidding of industry power players. Bergman was a valuable commodity to the power players and her stock plummeted when she left her husband for Rossellini. They tried to prevent it regardless of the personal misery she was in and later distanced themselves from the star. Some things don't change and it's got nothing to do with politics.
ReplyDeleteCurious as to how many Oscars Bergman won, I came upon this in IMDB.
ReplyDeleteWhy the hell is Cary Grant's name in quotes for having accepted the award on her behalf for Anastasia? Was it an impersonator or what?
Sorry, this kind of thing ENRAGES me, ha!
I believe Tracy was known to swing both ways. Wasn't the wife a devout Catholic who would never consent to divorce? They probably had an arrangement. I always figured that he and Hepburn provided each other love and companionship more than passion.
ReplyDeleteAlso, when I was a kid, Pia Lindstrom was a reporter on one of the local NY tv stations.
She slept with David Selznick - He must have had some sort of charm that is not apparent in photos I've seen of him.
ReplyDelete@Gayeld: I concur. I think Tracy and Hepburn were real, not an arrangement. Not to mention, Hepburn also had a fling with Howard Hughes. Was she also into women? Maybe? Probably? But you're right that it made absolutely no sense to use a married costar as her beard.
ReplyDeleteIt's stuff like this that really highlights how rumors about Tracy, Hepburn and Grant should all be taken with a grain of salt. Maybe they're all true, but they're not the *whole* truth.
Did anyone read "Full Service", by Scotty Borrows?
ReplyDeleteHe claims Hepburn was gay, Tracy was gay after some drinks.
@NomNom83
ReplyDeleteI'm of the opinion that her relationship with Hughes was just business. He was trying to establish himself as a Hollywood power-player and she needed a merkin.
I truly believe that she was a lesbian.
@Paint Chips
ReplyDeleteSelznick deserves credit for recognising that Bergman's natural beauty would be a breath of fresh air for the female audience. He insisted that studio hair and makeup technicians change nothing about her appearance.
Bergman was of the Louise Brooks school of acting (i.e. she didn't *do* she *felt*). She's one of my favourites.
ReplyDeleteIf anyone's interested, the film she made with Gregory Peck is Hitchcock's 'Spellbound' (1945) and it's well worth watching, if only for her performance.
It's a myth that Hepburn was the love of Tracy's life. She herself perpetuated a lot of that crap after he died.
ReplyDeleteTracy would get wasted and disappear for days on benders with young boys. He was a tormented man.
Ingrid certainly had an interesting life--will always love her in Casablanca and so many other great films.
Sad about the beatings. He musta been a dick. Poor pia.
ReplyDelete"And that, Isabella Rosellini, was how I met your mother."
ReplyDeleteThis isn't a blind, more like an Old Hollywood Pop Quiz.
ReplyDelete