To tell you boldly like a lover that I love you

Six years after doing their first film together, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941), Ingrid Bergman and Victor Fleming reunited for Joan of Arc (1948), a film based on Maxwell Anderson's successful Broadway play Joan of Lorraine. To great critical acclaim, Bergman had played the French heroine on the stage and was quite eager to reprise the role in the film version. While under contract to producer David O. Selznick, for years the actress had been promised to do a Joan of Arc film but it never happened. So when Walter Wanger (producer), Victor Fleming (director) and Maxwell Anderson (playwright, who would turn his own stage play into a script) committed themselves to bringing Joan of Arc to the screen, Ingrid was ecstatic.

In early 1947, during pre-production of the film, 31-year-old Ingrid Bergman and 58-year-old Victor Fleming started an affair (Fleming being married to Lucile Rosson and Bergman to Petter Lindström). Fleming fell in love with Bergman, while Bergman was in love with Joan of Arc rather than with Fleming. Their respective spouses eventually found out about the affair, Petter Lindström at one point showing up unannounced at the New York hotel where Fleming and Bergman were staying. Lindström reportedly called Fleming's room from the hotel lobby at two A.M. —after he didn't find Bergman in her own room— and asked to speak to his wife. "Damn embarrassing, that's what it was", Fleming later said. In the end, the affair didn't last beyond Joan of Arc and Fleming reconciled with his wife while Bergman went back to Lindström. (In 1949, Bergman started an affair with another director, Italian Roberto Rossellini, and for him she would leave Lindström; read more about the scandal that followed in this post.)

Victor Fleming and Ingrid Bergman on the set of Joan of Arc

Fleming and Bergman fooling around while filming Joan of Arc

Bergman and her first husband Petter Lindström

Fleming wrote several love letters to Bergman, two of them seen below. According to Alan Burgess (Ingrid's co-author on her 1980 memoir), Bergman never protested against Fleming's declarations of love as she felt that "it was all part of the flood of creation".

(written on the envelope) This was in my pocket when I arrived. Several more I destroyed. The Lord only knows what is written here, and no doubt His mind is a little hazy because he had not a very firm grip upon me at the time I was writing —we were slightly on the "outs". I was putting more trust in alcohol than in the Lord. And now I am putting all my trust in you when, without opening this, I send it, for you may think me very foolish. 

(letter inside the envelope) Just a note to tell you dear— to tell you what? That it's evening? That we miss you? That we drank to you? No—to tell you boldly like a lover that I love you—cry across the miles and hours of darkness that I love you—that you flood across my mind like waves across the sand. If you care—or if you don't, these things to you with love I say. I am devotedly—your foolish—ME.

_____

 

Dear and darling Angel,

How good to hear your voice. How tongue-tied and stupid I become. How sad for you. Then when you put the phone down, the click is like a bullet. Dead silence. Numbness and then thoughts. Thoughts that beat like drums upon my brain. My heart, my brain. I hate and loathe both. How they hurt and torment me— pain my flesh and bones. When they have had their fill of that, they quarrel and fight each other. My brain beats my heart into a great numbness. Then my brain pounds my heart to death. All this I can do nothing about.

In Arabian Nights it says: "Do what thy manhood bids thee do. From none but self expect applause. He best lives and noblest dies, who makes and keeps his self-made laws."

Time stopped when I got aboard that train. It became dark and in the darkness I was lost. Why I did not think to do some drinking I don't know. I went to bed for fourteen hours and I slept fourteen minutes, forgot to order breakfast on the Century, and had no food or coffee until 1 p.m. That much I remember. Someone met me at the train. I'm very much afraid she found me crying. A hundred years old and crying over a girl.  I said, "There's no fool like an old fool."

 

Sources: Victor Fleming: An American Movie Master (2008) by Michael Sragow and Ingrid Bergman: My Story (1980) by Ingrid Bergman and Alan Burgess. 

 

Released in November 1948, Joan of Arc received mixed reviews while failing at the box-office. The film was Victor Fleming's final achievement. On 6 January 1949, while at home sitting in a chair, Fleming suddenly collapsed and died of a heart attack en route to the hospital. Bergman said that Fleming had worn himself out making Joan of Arc, anxious to make the film a success knowing how much Joan of Arc meant to her. The actress was deeply saddened by Fleming's passing and, according to Alan Burgess, felt a certain responsiblity, wondering whether the pressures of the film had contributed to his untimely death. Fleming, best known for directing the 1939 classics Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz, was 59 years old. 

10 November 1948, Ingrid Bergman is escorted by Victor Fleming to a benefit performance of Joan of Arc, given for the United Hospital Fund.

Remembering Michael Curtiz

Born in Hungary as Manó Kertész Kaminer, director Michael Curtiz arrived in Hollywood in 1926 at age 39. Having already directed numerous films in Europe, Curtiz was signed to a contract by Warner Bros, the studio where he would make nearly all of his Hollywood films. While Curtiz didn't have a signature style like some of his peers (like Alfred Hitchcock or Frank Capra), he was a versatile director who could handle a variety of genres, including adventure, western, musical, drama, comedy and film noir. A lot of films that are now considered classics were directed by Curtiz, among them The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), Casablanca (1942), Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), Mildred Pierce (1945) and White Christmas (1954).

Curtiz was a workaholic, working long hours without pausing for lunch and dismissing actors who ate lunch as "lunch bums" (which led Peter Lorre to remark: "Curtiz eats pictures and excretes pictures"). A lot of actors as well as crew members found the director very difficult to work with. Biographer Alan Rode said that Curtiz's "demonic work ethic approached savagery" and that the working conditions on his sets had contributed to the founding of the Screen Actors Guild. As mentioned in this post, Bette Davis hated working with Curtiz. Among the actors who also had problems with the director were Errol Flynn, Humphrey Bogart and James Cagney, and the latter once said: "Mike was a pompous bastard who didn’t know how to treat actors, but he sure as hell knew how to treat a camera". 

Struggling with the English language, Curtiz was known for his use of malapropisms. For example, a well-known anecdote is that Curtiz had asked for a "poodle" on the set of Casablanca; some time later the prop master brought him a little dog, not realising Curtiz had meant a "puddle" (of water),  not a "poodle".

Seen below are three letters from actresses who remember what is was like to work with Curtiz. The letters, all written in 1975, are addressed to Curtiz's daughter Candace Curtiz who was working on a book about her famous father. (I couldn't find any information regarding the book, so I guess it was never published.)

The first letter is from Olivia de Havilland who had quite a hard time with Curtiz, finding him "exigent, emotional, and even harsh". She was directed by him nine times, i.e. in Captain Blood (1935), The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936), Gold Is Where You Find It (1938), The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), Four's a Crowd (1938), Dodge City (1939), The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939), Santa Fe Trail (1940) and The Proud Rebel (1958). 

Not all actors found Curtiz difficult to work with, however. Claude Rains, for example, whom Curtiz had directed in ten films, got along with the director quite well. And there were others, including Ingrid Bergman and Rosalind Russell, who said they enjoyed working with the man. Bergman, who was directed by Curtiz in Casablanca (1942), and Russell, who worked with him on Roughly Speaking (1945), talk about their experiences in the second and third letter of this post, written on resp. 5 February 1975 and 22 August 1975.

On the set of Gold Is Where You Find It with Olivia de Havilland, George Brent and Mike Curtiz.

(The image on the left only shows the back of Ingrid's letter.)

I belong to the people who loved your father. He was extremely nice to me during the shooting of “Casablanca”. He was under such stress because the script was written day by day. All his actors were nervous not knowing what was going to happen, all of them asking for their dialogue. He sat mostly by himself in deep thoughts, while the lights were being changed. He was very impatient and couldn’t stand people that worked slowly. How wonderful, if he had known he was making a masterpiece, a classic that would be loved for generations! I never met your father outside of work, so I really only know him from the set. I think Hal Wallis, the producer and still here in Hollywood, could help you. They fought over the story every lunch hour!! 

I wish you best of luck —

Ingrid Bergman 

Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman and Mike Curtiz on the set of Casablanca.

Transcript:

Dear Miss Curtiz:

Forgive my not answering your letter. It was because I really had nothing to offer your book of great value.

I worked for your father but he did not use the "bon mots" many others said he did. He was hardworking + thorough, full of enthusiasm.

I enjoyed working with him + felt he put a good deal of his own unique energy on to the film he was making.

Good luck with your book about a splendid filmmaker!

Rosalind Russell

Mike Curtiz  and Rosalind Russell on the set of Roughly Speaking.

Source of all letters: One Of A Kind Collectibles Auctions

I'm fed up with being interviewed

In March 1957 on the television show Caesar's Hour, Joan Crawford conducted a short interview with fellow actress Ingrid Bergman after presenting her with the Look Magazine Award. The award was to honour Ingrid as Best Actress of the Year for her performance in Anastasia (1956). While the interview lasts only a few minutes, it's really nice to see these two actresses together, Joan being her glamorous self and Ingrid natural and graceful as always. Here it is:

During their careers Joan and Ingrid never played in a film together, although they did play the same role of a disfigured woman in A Woman's Face, Ingrid in the original Swedish film from 1938 and Joan in the 1941 Hollywood remake. Also, they were contenders for the Best Actress Oscar in 1946, Joan being nominated for Mildred Pierce and Ingrid for The Bells of St. Mary's. (Joan eventually won but, convinced that Ingrid would win, she had stayed at home during the Oscar ceremony, feigning pneumonia.) While I don't think the women were friends, they obviously admired and respected each other and occasionally sent each other letters. 

Below is some of Ingrid's correspondence to Joan. First up is a 1946 notecard, congratulating Joan on her Oscar for Mildred Pierce (written the day after the Oscar ceremony). 

March 8- 46

Dear Joan —

My very sincere congratulations!

Ingrid Bergman

(Source: Heritage Auctions)

Next is a letter (shown in part) from 22 April 1969, in which Ingrid tells Joan that she is sorry to have missed her at the Oscars, held the week before. At the time Ingrid was filming A Walk in the Spring Rain (1970) and had just finished Cactus Flower (1969).

Source: Heritage Auctions

Transcript:

I am sorry I didn't see you at the Oscar affair except a second on the monitor backstage. Hope you are well and happy (you looked marvelous!) and all is well with your children. Mine came for a brief visit over Easter vacation. It's too bad my two pictures are so close together. I had no time to go home.

All my warmest wishes and love,

Ingrid

Finally, this letter was written in May 1975 and apparently Ingrid had agreed to do an interview with a friend of Joan's but decided not to go through with it, fed up with being interviewed. (By the looks of it, she didn't mind being interviewed by Joan years earlier!)

Source: icollector.com

Transcript:

Dear Joan —

Sorry, but I just couldn't see your friend for an interview. I have been so pressed for time and am also fed up with being interviewed. 

I am going home tomorrow for a rest and I send you my warmest wishes —

Ingrid

May 13- 75

Your Christmas card was the most wonderful that I have ever received!

Director George Cukor usually began planning his Christmas cards in the fall. His good friend and fashion photographer George Hoyningen-Huene (who worked as a colour consultant on some of Cukor's films, e.g. the 1954 A Star is Born) would next design the cards, a tradition which lasted until Huene's death in 1968. One of Cukor's most elaborate cards was the 1959 Christmas card, which was a collage of his three dogs, several film projects and events (see here). The 1961 card was much smaller and came in the form of a bookmark, with Cukor's Christmas greeting on one side and facsimile photos of his beloved dogs on the other. (Marilyn Monroe was one of the recipients of the 1961 card (see here).) 

What Christmas cards Ingrid Bergman and Joan Crawford received from Cukor in resp. 1953 and 1966 I don't know, but judging from their reaction in the following letters the cards must have been special. Bergman, who had worked with Cukor on Gaslight (1944), thanks the director via a letter sent from Rome, Italy. (The opera she refers to in her letter is Joan of Arc at the Stake.) Crawford and Cukor were good friends —they had worked together several times, among others on The Women (1939) and A Woman's Face (1941)— and Joan not only thanks her friend for the card but also for the box of soaps he sent her.

Source: icollector.com

Source: icollector.com

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

You should face the fact that he has no talent

In 1952, Italian neorealist director Roberto Rossellini approached Rebecca West, British author and literary critic, to write the dialogue for his next film, to be based on Colette's novel Duo. West then travelled to Italy to meet with Rossellini and his wife Ingrid Bergman who was to be the female star of the film. Meeting Rossellini, West found the director "a show-off, very gabby, ignorant and pretentious" and thought that his idea for the screenplay was "not enough to make a good film". (As Rossellini had not been able to purchase the rights to Colette's novel, he had presented her with a plot line that was quite different from the book.) Also unimpressed with Rossellini's previous film Europe '51 (1952), West eventually declined the assignment and went back home.

Above and below: Rebecca West and Ingrid Bergman at the Women's National Press Club in April 1948.

Returning home from her disappointing Italian trip, West received a letter from Ingrid Bergman who apologised for the failure of their joint project. The letter shown below is not Bergman's letter, though, but West's brutally honest reply ("an extraordinary letter", as she herself called it, unlike anything she had ever written).

Incidentally, although West felt Bergman had "great talent and a great personality", she once made some derogatory remarks about the actress, saying that she was "common and mannerless" and that —after West's husband had told her that Ingrid's mother came from Hamburg, Germany— "she might well be a housemaid in a big Hamburg hotel".

10 March 1953

Dear Miss Bergman,

Thank you very much for your letter, which I am going to answer honestly. My feelings were not in the least hurt by the abandonment of what was for both of us a trial trip. But I was distressed by the whole incident, from your point of view. I had been asked to write the dialogue of a film which was being founded on an important novel, Duo, by an important writer, Colette.

Instead I was faced with a ridiculous idea, incapable of development in any way not likely to be prejudicial to your reputation.

You may love your husband very much, but you should face the fact that he has no talent. You have great talent and a great personality, and it is absurd that for the sake of your private emotions you should allow these gifts to be wasted in a film like Europe 1951, which is so inept that even your performance, which excites admiration by itself, cannot save it.

You will not believe this when you read it, and you will think me an odious woman. But when your husband has made two more films for you, you remember this letter, and think about putting yourself in the hands of a competent director.

I never wrote such an extraordinary letter as this in my life. But I have also never seen such an extraordinary situation as the wreck of your artistic life.

With all good wishes,

I am, 

Yours sincerely,

Rebecca West  

[Source: Selected Letters of Rebecca West, edited by Bonnie Kime Scott (2000)] 

 

The film that Rossellini eventually made without West's help was Journey to Italy (1954), starring Ingrid Bergman and George Sanders as an estranged married couple vacationing in Italy. While both a box-office and critical flop upon release, the film is now regarded by many as Rossellini's masterpiece and according to director Martin Scorsese "one of the most honest portraits of a marriage ever put on film". Loosely based on Colette's novel Duo, the screenplay was written by Rossellini and Vitaliano Brancati.

George Sanders and Ingrid Bergman as Alex and Katherine Joyce in a scene from Journey to Italy aka Viaggio in Italia or Voyage to Italy.

Roberto Rossellini on the set of Europe '51 with Ingrid Bergman and another cast member. Rossellini and Bergman worked together six times — on Stromboli (1950), Europe '51 (1952), We, the Women (1953), Journey to Italy (1954), Fear (1954) and Joan of Arc at the Stake (1954). 

I am your same solid true friend no matter what you ever do

For the film adaptation of his 1940 acclaimed novel For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway wanted Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman to play the lead roles. The author was a good friend of Cooper's but didn't meet Bergman until January 1941 at Jack's Restaurant in San Francisco. During lunch they discussed the possibility of Bergman portraying the Spanish Maria, a part she really wanted to play. Being a Nordic, however, Bergman was concerned that she wouldn't be right for the role. Hemingway immediately told her not to worry and afterwards gave her a copy of his novel with the inscription: "For Ingrid Bergman, who is the Maria of this story". (For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943) was eventually made with Cooper and Bergman in the leads, like Hemingway wanted, and was directed by Sam Wood.)

Life magazine was invited to take photos of the first meeting between Ingrid Bergman and Ernest Hemingway in January 1941—above at Jack's Restaurant and below at St. Francis Hotel.

Bergman and Hemingway eventually became close friends. Hemingway was one of the people who had supported Bergman during one of the most difficult periods of her life. In 1949, the actress started an affair with Italian filmmaker Roberto Rossellini, leaving her husband Petter Lindström and daughter Pia behind in Sweden and causing a huge scandal (read more in this post). Exiled from Hollywood and declared persona non grata in the USA, Bergman fortunately still had her friends to count on, many of whom sent her letters of encouragement and support.

In the midst of the scandal Hemingway wrote Bergman the following letter, wishing to let her know that he loved her and that he was her unconditional friend. He also included a warning for Rossellini to better treat his friend right or else (".. he better be a damned good boy for you or Mister Papa will kill him some morning when he has a morning free"). Hemingway is said to have disliked Rossellini, whom he referred to as "the twenty-two pound rat".

 

Dear Ingrid:

Here's your contact, daughter. How is Stromboli? How is Calabria? I have a sort of idea how they are. (Beautiful and Very Dirty.) But how are you? That's what's important. (Maybe you are very beautiful and very dirty too?)

Your letter with Petter's fine P.S. came here to hospital in Padova where I have been with an infected eye. I got it the day you arrived in Italy. How's that for long-distance contact?

Am on my fifth million units of penicillin (they punch my derriere like a time clock every three hours) but fever now is normal and the infection which turned into Erysipelis (no relation to syphilis) but knocked it finally....

[The above part was written from Villa Aprile, Cortina d'Ampezzo in Italy and then Hemingway continued from Finca Vigia, San Francisco de Paula in Cuba:]

What happened was that I got sicker after I wrote that first part and I had to use a lot more penicillin and my eye was too bad to write.

Then I read all that stuff about you and Rossellini and Petter and I didn't know what to write. Now I've had time to think it over (still knowing nothing of what goes on) and I do know I love you very much and am your same solid true friend no matter what you ever do, or decide or where you ever go. The only thing is that I miss you.

Listen daughter, now I have to make speech. This is our one and only life as I once explained to you. No one is famous nor infamous. You are a great actress. I know that from New York. Great actresses always have great troubles sooner or later. If they did not they would not be worth a shit. (Bad word you can delete it.) All things great actresses do are forgiven.

Continue speech: Everybody reaches wrong decisions. But many times the wrong decision is the right decision wrongly made. End of speech.

New speech: Do not worry. It never helped anything ever. 

Finished with speeches. Daughter, please don't worry and be a brave and good girl and know you have, only this short distance away, two people, Mary and me, who love you and are loyal to you. 

Let's be cheerful now like when we used to drink together... Remember this is Holy Year and everybody is pardoned for everything. Maybe you can have quintuplets in the Vatican and I will come and be a first time godfather...

If you love Roberto truly give him our love and tell him he better be a damned good boy for you or Mister Papa will kill him some morning when he has a morning free.

Ernest

P.S. This is a lousy letter but we live in the lousiest times there ever were I think. But it is our one and only life so we might as well not complain about the ball park we have to play in.

We had a wonderful time in Italy. I love Venice in the non-tourist time and all the country around it and the Dolomites are the best mountains I know. I wish you had not been working and could have come up and stayed with us in Cortina d'Ampezzo. I tried to call you up from the hospital, but they said you were in some place without a phone.

Maybe this will never get to you. It certainly won't if I don't send it off. Good luck my dear. Mary sends her love.

Ernest (Mister Papa)

Source: Ingrid Bergman: My Story (1980) by Ingrid Bergman and Alan Burgess 

I forgot everything you had done for me

A Swedish elevator boy, who worked in the New York building where Kay Brown had her office, once told Brown of his parents' enthusiasm for a new Swedish star named Ingrid Bergman and her role in the Swedish film Intermezzo (1936). A talent scout and assistant to producer David Selznick, Brown sought out the film and went "madly overboard about the girl", feeling she was "the beginning and end of all things wonderful". Her boss was very interested in remaking foreign films for the American market and as he loved the story of Intermezzo, Brown was sent to Europe (London) in the fall of 1938 to purchase the film rights. Later Selznick sent Brown back to Europe, this time to Stockholm to find the girl and sign her to a contract. (Bergman and Brown hit it off right away and became close friends.)

In May 1939, Bergman met Selznick for the first time at a Hollywood party at Miriam Hopkins' house. Selznick immediately told her that certain things wouldn't do —her name was impossible, her eyebrows too thick and her teeth no good— to which Bergman said she would go back to Sweden if he tried to change her. Realising she meant it, Selznick got an idea. He would do what no one in Hollywood had ever done before. He would allow Bergman to keep her real name and to remain herself. No heavy make-up, no plucking of eyebrows, nothing about her was to be changed. Ingrid Bergman, the Swedish star, was going to be the first "natural" actress in Hollywood.

Earlier, in Stockholm at Bergman's home, Kay Brown had already negotiated Bergman's contract. Selznick wanted to give Bergman the standard seven-year contract, but her husband Petter Lindström objected. In the end, a contract was signed for one picture with the option to do another. 

The picture was, as said, Intermezzo: A Love Story (1939), Selznick's remake of the Swedish Intermezzo, in which Bergman reprised her role of the piano teacher. Immediately after production of the film had ended, Bergman returned to Sweden to make Juninatten (1940). She had loved her Hollywood adventure and desperately hoped that Selznick would want her back for another film. Well, she needn't have worried, because aboard the Queen Mary en route to Sweden she received a telegram saying: "Dear Ingrid. You are a very lovely person and you warm all our lives. Have a marvellous time but come back soon. Your boss." 

In her diary (her "Book"), Bergman wrote about Selznick in the summer of 1939, while aboard the Queen Mary:

From the first minute, I liked him and every day my admiration and my affection grew. He knew his metier so well; he was artistic and stubborn and worked himself to the bone. Sometimes we worked until five o'clock in the morning. I would come to him with all my problems. He left important meetings to come out and discuss with me a pair of shoes. Hundreds of times he saved me from the publicity department. I trusted him when we saw the rushes and he told me what he thought. His judgement was very hard but it was just. To work for him is often terribly demanding and very hard on the nerves. But always there is the feeling that you have somebody to help with understanding, encouragement, and wisdom, and that is beyond price. When I left, he asked me to sign an enormous photograph, and I wrote: For David, I have no words, Ingrid. Which is true.

Back in Hollywood, Bergman was signed to a five-year contract with Selznick. During those five years she would work with him on only two more films, both directed by Alfred Hitchcock, i.e. Spellbound (1945) and Notorious (1946). For her other films she was loaned out to other studios — e.g. Casablanca (1942) to Warner Bros, For Whom The Bell Tolls (1943) to Paramount, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941) and Gaslight (1944) to MGM, and The Bells of St. Mary's (1945) to RKO. Towards the end of the five-year period, Selznick tried to sign Bergman to a new contract (for seven years) but she wanted more freedom and decided to go freelance. 

Being loaned out all these years, Bergman knew that Selznick had made huge profits on her. She didn't mind, as she loved her work and was earning a lot more than she ever did in Sweden. However, with the expiration of her contract, Bergman felt she was entitled to some of the money Selznick had earned by loaning her out. When she asked him for money, Selznick became offended and angry and would not speak to her anymore. He found her ungrateful, seeing that he was the one who had made her a big star. Bergman, in turn, was very hurt by Selznick's anger, as she had always looked up to him and regarded him as a father and mentor. 

 

The three films Bergman did for Selznick: Intermezzo with Leslie Howard, Spellbound with Gregory Peck and Notorious with Cary Grant. Notorious started out as a Selznick production but, busy with Duel in the Sun (1946), Selznick lost interest and sold the rights to RKO. Nevertheless, with a 50% stake in the profits, Selznick (being Selznick) kept meddling in the project. Hitchcock was eventually credited as the film's producer.

In January 1947, Selznick wrote Bergman a long letter, pointing out all he had done for her and accusing her of being ungrateful and unreasonable for demanding a $60,000 compensation for a film she had never made. Selznick's letter is seen below, although it won't be shown in full as it really is quite looong. The letter is very unusual, because —in order to get his point across— Selznick had made it appear as though it was a letter from Bergman to him. David Thomson, Selznick's biographer, once said that he found it a wonderful idea for a letter but "one that a grown man should have abandoned in the morning".

Incidentally, the $60,000 compensation was eventually paid.

Mr. David O. Selznick

Selznick Studio

Culver City, California

January 13, 1947

Dear David:

I shall set forth herein a summary of the facts in my dispute with you. It is agreed that upon your receipt of my signature to these facts, you will pay me $60,000 in payment for the picture that I did not make for you under my contract, and for which I am claiming compensation.

These facts are as follows: 

You brought me to this country when I was unknown to American- or English-speaking audiences. When I finished my contract with you, under your management, I had become one of the greatest stars in the world, this development taking place entirely while I was under your management.  

[....] 

When my contract drew near to an end, our negotiations for a new contract bogged down upon your insistence on an exclusive contract for a period of seven years. Through these long negotiations, which had gone on for years, I repeatedly assured you that there could be not the slightest question about my continuing with you, but that I wanted to be free to do an occasional picture on the outside. I stated to you verbally and in writing, and repeatedly, that there could be not the slightest question but that I would continue with you. I made these statements right up to a few months before the expiration of my contract with you.

[....] 

When I went to Europe, I sent you a letter, a copy of which is attached hereto, in which among other things I said, "I think friendship and trust are of more worth than a piece of paper called contract. And if you never get that slip of paper you still will have, changed or unchanged, whatever you think, but still, your Ingrid." 

[....] 

Unfortunately for you, when I returned from Europe, and had everything that I wanted, I forgot all about my promises and statements through the years. I forgot everything you had done for me. I forgot my promises, and even my letter. And I demanded payment for the picture which I asked you to give up, and which you had given up, and which could have been one of the subjects listed above, on which you would, of course, have made a great deal of money, as well as absorbed your overhead, which was idle, largely as a result of my not making a picture. It is true that I entertained the troops on my own insistent desire to do so, but I didn't see and still don't see why you shouldn't pay me $60,000 for having done so.

I complained that you did not make more pictures with me, both privately and in the press. I neglected to say to anybody that you wanted to buy The Valley of Decision and make it with me, but that I didn't want to do it; or that you wanted to make The Spiral Staircase with me... or that you wanted to do Katie for Congress [The Farmer's Daughter] with me; or that you wanted to buy A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and make it with me, making it more the story of the mother, but that I didn't care to do it, and that Twentieth Century-Fox thereupon bought it and made it into a great success for themselves and for your Dorothy McGuire; or that you wanted to make Anna Christie with me, but that I didn't want to do it because Garbo had done it; or that you wanted to make Anna Karenina but that I didn't want to do it, for the same reason; or that there were half a dozen other stories you wanted to make with me, but that I didn't like; or that you took the unprecedented attitude that you would lend me to others for pictures I wanted to make rather than ask me to do pictures that you wanted to make, but in roles that I didn't care for.

Throughout the years, you devoted an enormous amount of time to going over material for me, and to reading scripts submitted from every studio in town, in order to be sure that I was the first actress in the history of the screen that had her pick of the best stories of every studio in town, plus the insistence of yourself as to how the picture should be set up and who should make them in each department. This insistence on your part meant that I had Fleming, Cukor, Curtiz, Wood, McCarey as my directors; that I had the best cameramen in the business, all selected and approved by you, since I didn't know any of them; that I had Spencer Tracy, Gary Cooper, Charles Boyer, Joseph Cotten, Bing Crosby, Gregory Peck, Cary Grant as my leading men, although any other rising young actress would have given her eye teeth for any one of these occasionally, and all of this through the formative period of my career. I am aware that I was the envy of every young actress in town, and even of every already established star, and that a great deal of trouble was caused at other studios by actresses who contrasted your handling of me with what they had to play in, whom they had to be directed by, and scripts, stories, leading men, publicity, etc..

When everyone in Hollywood disbelieved in me and wondered why you had brought me over, and through the long period when you couldn't lend me to anyone, and through the secondary period when you were lending me at cost and at less than cost, you insisted that I was the great actress of this generation, that I would be the greatest star in the industry, that I would be the Academy Award winner, that I would be universally acclaimed...

And in consideration of the above, I herewith make demand upon you for €60,000 for the picture which I asked you not to make, and for the period that I was entertaining troops. Upon payment of this amount to me, you are free of the obligation which I feel that you owe me, having had the privilege and glory of lifting me from obscurity to great stardom.

Ingrid Bergman 

Source: Memo from David O. Selznick (1972); selected and edited by Rudy Behlmer

In the end, Bergman and Selznick did part as friends. Realising he had to let her go, Selznick wrote Bergman this goodbye letter, wishing her luck for the future.

Dear Ingrid, 

I am informed that even Dan O'Shea [Selznick's associate] has reluctantly and at long last come to the conclusion that no new deal with us has been seriously envisaged as part of your future plans. This conclusion comes as no surprise to me, despite our final reliance and faith that I expressed in our conversation and in no way lessens my sorrow over our 'divorce' after so many years of happy marriage. You once said you had 'two husbands'. But Petter was the senior, and of course he knew all the time that his will would prevail. I do regret all the futile gestures and elaborate 'negotiations' but that is all I do regret in a relationship which will always be a source of pride to me. I am sure you know that I have the greatest confidence that your career will go steadily up to new heights, achieving in full the promise of your great talent; and that my good wishes will always be yours no matter what you do. So long Ingrid! May all the New Years beyond bring you everything of which you dream. 

David.

Source: Ingrid Bergman: My Story (1980) by Ingrid Bergman and Alan Burgess 

Ingrid Bergman's Fall from Grace

By the late 1940s, Swedish-born Ingrid Bergman had become one of Hollywood's biggest and most beloved stars. Brought to the United States by producer David Selznick, Bergman made her first American film Intermezzo in 1939, later followed by such classics as Casablanca (1942), For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943), Gaslight (1944) and Notorious (1946). America adored Bergman, but this abruptly changed in 1949 when she went to Italy and fell in love with Italian director Roberto Rossellini.

Bergman had gone to Italy to make Stromboli (1950) with Rossellini and during production they began an affair which would lead to a scandal of immense proportions. At the time Bergman was married to Swedish brain surgeon Petter Lindström with whom she had a 10-year-old daughter Pia. Rossellini was also married, having recently had a public affair with actress Anna Magnani. The press was having a field day covering the Bergman-Rossellini affair, especially when word got out that Bergman was also pregnant with Rossellini's child. In February 1950 baby Robertino was born out of wedlock and the next month Bergman was denounced on the floor of the U.S. Senate, with senator Johnson saying that she had perpetrated "an assault on the institution of marriage" and even calling her "a powerful influence for evil". 

The scandal forced Bergman to live in exile in Italy, leaving her daughter Pia and husband in the U.S.. In May 1950, after a highly publicised divorce, Bergman married Rossellini and they had two more children (twin daughters, one of them actress Isabella Rossellini). It wasn't until January 1957 that Bergman returned to the U.S., receiving the New York Film Critics' Best Actress Award for her American comeback role in Anastasia (1956) - the role that would also earn her her second Oscar. The American people had at last forgiven her and welcomed her back, of which Bergman later said: "I’ve gone from saint to whore and back to saint again, all in one lifetime".

Ingrid Bergman and Roberto Rossellini whose marriage ended in divorce in 1957.

The Bergman-Rossellini affair was a major concern to Hollywood. Once the press started to report about the affair, Joseph Breen (head of the Production Code Administration) became very worried, writing to a Jesuit friend that the affair was possibly the most shocking scandal Hollywood had had to face in years, especially since "Miss Bergman, from the first day of her arrival here, [had] always conducted herself in a most commendable manner. There [had] never been even the slightest breath of scandal about her. She was regarded as a fine lady of unimpeachable character, a good wife and a good mother".

On 22 April 1949, Breen wrote a letter to Bergman herself and pleaded with her to deny the accusations made against her. Breen's urgent plea can be read below, as well as a telegram from Walter Wanger who also wanted Bergman to contradict the rumours. Wanger was producer of Bergman's latest film Joan of Arc (1948), playing in the theatres when the affair came out, and he was very concerned about his investment. Bergman refused their requests to deny the rumours and issued a press release several months later (in August) saying that she was divorcing her husband. The scandal undoubtedly contributed to Joan of Arc and Bergman's next film Under Capricorn (released in September 1949) becoming box-office failures. Stromboli was also a box-office bomb in the U.S. but was received better overseas.

Ingrid Bergman on the set of Joan of Arc (1948) with director Victor Fleming (who died shortly after the film was released): "People saw me in Joan of Arc and declared me a saint. I'm not. I'm just a woman, another human being". 

Joseph I. Breen (left) and Walter Wanger

 

Dear Miss Bergman, 

In recent days, the American newspapers have carried, rather widely, a story to the effect that you are about to divorce your husband, forsake your child, and marry Roberto Rossellini.  

It goes without saying that these reports are the cause of great consternation among large numbers of our people who have come to look upon you as the first lady of the screen -- both individually and artistically. On all hands, I hear nothing but expressions of profound shock that you have any such plans.  

My purpose in presuming to write to you in the matter is to call your attention to the situation. I feel that these reports are untrue and that they are, possibly, the result of some overzealousness on the part of a press-agent, who mistakenly believes to be helpful from a publicity standpoint.   

Anyone who has such thoughts is, of course, tragically in error. Such stories will not only not react favourably to your picture, but may very well destroy your career as a motion picture artist. They may result in the American public becoming so thoroughly enraged that your pictures will be ignored, and your box-office value ruined. 

This condition has become so serious that I am constrained to suggest that you find occasion, at the earliest possible moment, to issue a denial of these rumours -- to state, quite frankly, that they are not true, that you have no intention to desert your child or to divorce your husband, and that you have no plans to marry anyone. 

I make this suggestion to you in the utmost sincerity and solely with a view to stamping out these reports that constitute a major scandal and may well result in complete disaster personally.   

I hope you won't mind my writing to you so frankly. This is all so important, however, that I cannot resist conveying to you my considered thought in the matter. 

With assurances of my esteem, I am, 

Very cordially, Joseph I. Breen 

 

________ 

 

Dear Ingrid,   

The malicious stories about your behaviour need immediate contradiction from you. If you are not concerned about yourself and your family you should realize that because I believed in you and your honesty, I have made a huge investment endangering my future and that of my family which you are jeopardizing if you do not behave in a way which will disprove these ugly rumours broadcast over radio and press throughout the world.  

We both have a responsibility to Victor Fleming's memory and to all the people that believe in us. Assume you are unaware, or not being informed of, the magnitude of the newspaper stories, and their consequences, and that you are being completely misled. Do not fool yourself by thinking that what you are doing is of such courageous proportions or so artistic to excuse what ordinary people believe.   

Cable me on receipt of this wire. 

Source: Ingrid Bergman: My Story (1980) by Ingrid Bergman and Alan Burgess

I got it in the bathroom!

With the leading role in Anastasia (1956) Ingrid Bergman made her American comeback after she had spent years in Italy making films with Italian filmmaker Roberto Rossellini. Bergman had been forced to stay in Italy due to her affair with Rossellini and the major scandal it caused in the U.S. in 1949 (read more here). But in 1956, Bergman separated from Rossellini and, after being considered persona non grata in the U.S. for years, returned to the American screen with Anastasia and immediately won her second Oscar. 

On 27 March 1957, Cary Grant accepted the Oscar on Bergman's behalf during the 29th Academy Award ceremony. (Bergman herself was in Paris at the time starring in the French adaptation of the play Tea and Sympathy.) Bergman and Grant had become very good friends since they had worked together on Hitchock's Notorious (1946), and Grant was also one of the few people in Hollywood who had defended and supported Bergman during the Rossellini scandal. So it was only natural for Bergman to ask her dear friend to accept the award on her behalf in case she won. Of course, Grant willingly accepted and you can watch his acceptance speech here.

Above: Ingrid Bergman and her good friend Cary Grant who accepted the Oscar for Anastasia on her behalf; Bergman and Grant made two movies together: Notorious (1946 and Indiscreet (1958). Below: Yul Brynner and Bergman in a scene from "Anastasia", a film directed by Anatole Litvak.

Below: Backstage at the 29th Oscar ceremony with Anthony Quinn (Best Supporting Actor for Lust for Life), Dorothy Malone (Best Supporting Actress for Written on the Wind), Yul Brynner (Best Actor for The King and I) and Cary Grant holding Ingrid Bergman's Oscar for Best Actress for Anastasia.

The letter for this post is a letter from Ingrid Bergman to Cary Grant written in Paris on 29 March 1957, two days after the Oscar ceremony. Bergman thanks her friend for accepting the award for her and for the sweet words he spoke at the ceremony. She also tells him that, despite having given interviews to the press all day, she only fully realised that she had won the Oscar when she was in the bathroom hearing his voice on the radio.

Source: theacademy.tumblr.com/ from the Cary Grant papers at the Margaret Herrick Library

Transcript:

Paris 29-3-1957

My dear Cary, my wonderful friend:

I got the news about the award in the morning at 6 o'clock. I said on the phone: "I got it?" The answer was yes--- and I fell asleep again. This seems a very indifferent way of accepting an Oscar, but I was full of sleeping pills so that I could go through the night! A couple of hours later I was awakened and what seems to me 1000 photographers. The whole day I did nothing but answer questions in all languages about how I felt. I really felt a very dull happiness and was only hoping the day would end. Finallay [sic] it was over and I went to my room to take a bath and to see Tola and celebrate -in peace- the evening. I hear a scream and my 7 year old son rushes into the bathroom with the radio in his hands, yelling "Mama, they are talking about you". He came in just as I heared [sic] my name mentioned and the roar of the public in Hollywood. It was a transmission -on wire- with a French commentator about the awards. In the back of the commentator I heared your voice. You said something about "if you can hear me now" and "wherever you are the [sic] the world" and I said "I am here, Cary, in the bathroom!"And then you gave me the good wishes and I could hear all the people cheer. That was the moment I really received the Oscar and I felt tears coming to my eyes. Having known about it all day, but still not GETTING it, I GOT it in the bathroom! What a place to get an Oscar! Nothing could have made me happier than that you took it and I thank you for the sweet words you said. How lucky that I heard them, it was all due to my little boy! 

With my love,

Ingrid (signed)

Note

Bergman's first Oscar was for her leading role in Gaslight (1944), and she would win a third Oscar for her supporting role in the 1974 Murder on the Orient Express.