Anna Hofman-Uddgren Swedish actress, cabaret singer
BORN 1868 FEBRUARY 23 - 1947 JUNE 1
Anna Maria Viktoria Hofman-Uddgren ( 23 February 1868 – 1 June 1947) née Hammarström; also known as Hoffman and Hofmann, was a Swedish actress, cabaret singer, music hall and revue artist, theatre director, and film director. Until 2016, she was referred to as the first woman to become a film director in Sweden.[1][2]
Life[edit]
Anna Hofman-Uddgren was born in Hedvig Eleonora parish on Östermalm in Stockholm, Sweden. She was the daughter of Emma Hammarström (1849–1910) and was alleged to have been the illegitimate daughter of King Oscar II of Sweden. This was a often-repeated rumor in Stockholm at the time. The French artist Cléo de Mérode, who was engaged as a guest artist by Hofman-Uddgren, referred to these rumors: "It was said of her that she was the natural daughter of King Oscar, which is possible as she had a noted confidence."[1] This rumor was never confirmed, however: as Anna Hofman-Uddgren banned the press from mentioning any biographical information about her, an instruction that was respected by the press, despite the fact that biographical information was otherwise customarily provided about artists in the press.[1][3]
In her unpublished memoirs, Hofman-Uddgren stated that during her upbringing she was taken to Stockholm Palace by her mother, where she was introduced in private to the king, and that he asked her if there was anything he could do for her. When she was seventeen, Oscar II financed a trip to Paris, where she remained for eight years, studying the French language and singing. She debuted as a singer in charity concerts in Paris and participated in the artistic life there.[1]
In 1892, Hofman-Uddgren returned to Stockholm, where she debuted as a chanteuse at Stockholms Tivoli, an amusement park on the island of Djurgården in Stockholm, where she became a popular artist with her French repertoire of songs. At the end of the nineteenth century, Anna Hofman-Uddgren assumed management of the popular open-air theater, Kristallsalongen on Djurgården, where she also served as director. The theater business ceased in 1924.[4]
She debuted as a film director as well as a film actress in the silent film Stockholmsfrestelser (1911). She also directed the films of two plays by August Strindberg, Fadren (1912) and Fröken Julie (1912).[5]
Personal life[edit]
She married screenwriter, poet, journalist, and author Karl Gustaf Uddgren (1865–1927) in 1900 and they had six children: five daughters and one son. Her daughter, actress and theatre director Alice Eklund (1896–1983), married actor Ernst Eklund (1882–1971). Anna Hofmann-Uddgren died in Bromma and was buried at Skogskyrkogården in Stockholm.[6] Her grandchildren included actress Öllegård Wellton (1932–1991).[7]
Anna Hofman-Uddgren, who for a long time was viewed as Sweden’s first female film director*, was a colourful personality who took up the art of filmmaking with energy and enthusiasm during a brief period prior to the Golden Age of Swedish film. She was an illegitimate child whose parental origins are disputed and who grew up in Stockholm. At the age of seventeen her mother took her to meet King Oscar II, who was subsequently said to have paid for Anna to study in Paris. After four years in that city she came back to Stockholm as a fully-fledged chansonnette singer. Anna was a great success on the celebrated Stockholm entertainment scene of a century ago, especially at Djurgården’s Kristallsalong, of which she became the manager.
Anna Hofman-Uddgren’s contribution to cinema history comprises six films, all of them made between 1911-1912. They seem to have been made at the behest of the cinema owner H.P. Nilsson – “Häst-Nisse” as he was known – who was keen to show Swedish productions in his cinemas. She made three films written by her husband, the journalist Gustaf Uddgren, together with the already experienced cinematographer Otto Bökman, one film with an original screenplay by Elin Wägner and two films based on August Strindberg’s plays “Miss Julie” and “The Father”. The films were shot in various locations in Stockholm, often outdoors and starring well-known actors. Three of them feature a youthful Gösta Ekman, and Sigurd Wallén made his film debut in Systrarna (‘The Sisters’, 1912). Gustaf Uddgren had asked for permission from Strindberg to film “Miss Julie” and “The Father”, receiving the celebrated response: “Go ahead and make as much cinema as you like of my dramas.”
Screened at Häst-Nisse’s flagship cinema Orientaliska Teatern on Stockholm’s Drottninggatan, all six films were well received by the contemporary press. Only one of them, Fadren (‘The Father’, 1912), has survived. Essentially a filmed stage performance, it is mostly remarkable for the visible breath of the actors (it was filmed outdoors) and the frequent opening and closing of doors on the set. The film probably gives a somewhat distorted impression of Hofman-Uddgren as a filmmaker. In an interview during the filming of Miss Julie (1912) she speaks of the need to show things in film which are only mentioned in the play itself. As such, her Miss Julie contained both the visually alluring dance at the barn and the dramatically titillating seduction scene. She also seems to have made use of subjective images and a moving camera, and her second film, Blott en dröm (‘But a Dream’, 1911), was, as the title suggests, a variant on the dramatic technique – which would subsequently become so familiar – of allowing the entire story to be revealed as a dream in the end.
When Häst-Nisse died in 1912, Anna Hofman-Uddgren stopped making films and returned to the stage.
Film historian Professor Rune Waldekranz wrote a long essay about Anna Hofman-Uddgren in “Chaplin” (no. 3, 1983); and the theatre scholar Marika V. Lagercrantz wrote “An Unfinished Story. The Variety Star Anna Hofman” in the anthology “Kulturellt: Reflektioner i Erling Bjurströms anda” (Linköping 2009).
Mikaela Kindblom (2011, edited in 2016)
(translated by Derek Jones)
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