Mimi Pollak


Maria Helena "Mimi" Pollak was a Swedish actress and theatre director.

Biography

Maria Helena Pollak was born in Karlstad, Värmland to Austrian-Jewish parents and was trained in the performing arts at the prestigious Dramatens elevskola in Stockholm 1922-24.
Pollak worked in the 1920s and 1930s as a film actress and as stage actress mainly on Helsingborg City Theatre and The Blanche Theatre, Stockholm, but she returned as an actress to Royal Dramatic Theatre 1942.
Pollak became in 1948 the first contracted female director at the Dramaten with the production of Jean Genet's Jungfruleken, starring Anita Björk and Maj-Britt Nilsson in the leads. Pollak became a very successful director at Dramaten and staged altogether 60 plays at the national stage over the years.
She appeared since her 1922 debut in the film Amatörfilmen in about 30 film and TV productions. Notable film roles are her supporting parts in Schamyl Bauman's film comedy Skolka skolan, in Vilgot Sjöman's Klänningen, in Ingmar Bergman's Autumn Sonata as the piano teacher, in Flight of the Eagle, starring Max von Sydow and directed by Jan Troell and in the very popular Swedish TV mystery Agnes Cecilia - en sällsam historia, adapted from the successful books by Maria Gripe.
She retired in 1975, but made a stage comeback in 1991, age 87, in Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya.
Sometimes credited as Mimmi Pollak, Mimi Pollack or Mimmi Pollack.

Personal life

Pollak attended the Royal Dramatic Theatre school in Stockholm, Sweden with fellow actress Greta Garbo from 1922 to 1924. Garbo moved to the US in 1925 and Pollak married in 1927 and later had children, although they did maintain contact for over 60 years.
Their relationship and letters are portrayed in the Swedish book Djävla älskade unge!, written by Po Tin Andersén Axell, and in Garbo's personal writings, released in Sweden the same year.
Pollak was married 1927-1938 to Swedish actor Nils Lundell.

Selected filmography