Eva Dahlbeck


Eva Elisabet Dahlbeck was a Swedish stage, film, and television actress. She received a Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress for her performance in the film Brink of Life. Dahlbeck retired from acting in 1970 and became an author.

Biography

Eva Dahlbeck was born in Saltsjö-Duvnäs near Stockholm. She attended the prestigious acting school of the Royal Dramatic Theatre from 1941 to 1944, and acted on the Theatre's stage from 1944 to 1964. She made her film debut in the role of Botilla in Rid i natt! in 1942.
Among her most notable roles in Swedish films were the shrewd celebrity reporter Vivi in Kärlek och störtlopp, the working-class mother Rya-Rya in the drama Bara en mor ; Mrs. Larsson, the warmhearted mother of seven in the popular children's film Kastrullresan, and the young primary school teacher in Gustaf Molander's Trots . In the mid-1950s Dahlbeck was one of Sweden's most popular and successful actresses. She became internationally known for her strong female leads in a number of Ingmar Bergman's films, in particular his comedies Secrets of Women, A Lesson in Love and Smiles of a Summer Night. In 1965 she won the award for Best Actress at the 2nd Guldbagge Awards for her role in the film The Cats.
In the 1960s Dahlbeck moved away from acting as she started to write. She retired from the stage in 1964 and made her final appearance on screen in the Danish film Tintomara, released in 1970). She published several novels and poems in her native Sweden, and wrote the screenplay for Arne Mattsson's dark film Yngsjömordet in 1966.
Dahlbeck married Sven Lampell, an air force officer, in 1944. The marriage produced two children. She lived out the last years of her life in Hässelby Villastad, Stockholm, where she died at age 87.

Awards