Bergman’s courage praised

Press, 1 September 1982, Page 8

Bergman’s courage praised

NZPA Hollywood Actors w’ho worked with Ingrid Bergman recalled her “extraordinary” talent yesterday and said that despite her fame she was a nononsense person whose courage never wavered in her losing battle with cancer. The Swedish-born actress, who zoomed to stardom with the now-classic 1943 film, “Casablanca,” opposite Humphrey Bogart and later won three Academy Awards, died in London on her sixtyseventh birthday after an eight-year siege of cancer. Paul Henreid, who played her husband, Victor Laszlo in “Casablanca,” said in Los Angeles that she was “a lovely lady, a wonderful actress ... I don’t think she was taken by her beauty. She was taken only by the desire to do the best work possible in her profession." Joseph Cotten, who starred

opposite Miss Bergman when she won the first of three oscars in “Gaslight” (1944), said through a spokesman that she “was one of those gifted people who come along only now and then.” “She was the most extraordinary lady I ever met,” said Harve Bennett, who was executive producer of Miss Bergman’s last project, the television mini-series, “A Woman Called Golda.” “Everything about her was unexpectedly simple and honest after a life like that,” said Mr Bennett, noting that like the late Israeli Prime Minister, Golda Meier, Miss Bergman was “hamish” — a Yiddish word meaning, “of the earth.” Others noted that Miss Bergman, who was divorced three times and shunned by Hollywood for 10 years when she had a child out of wedlock with the Italian

director, Roberto Rossellini, had always showed the fortitude in private that she so often displayed on screen. “She had no pretensions. She hated the nonsense that went with being a great international star and the courage that she showed all of us. I doubt I’ll ever see again,” said Mr Bennett, noting that while working on “Golda" in 1981 Miss Bergman had been in almost constant pain from cancer that had led to two mastectomies. “At night she was . forced to sleep with her hand in traction above her head to keep the swelling from disfiguring her on camera. But she never complained, there are some scenes in the picture which are chilling scenes for everyone who worked with her — scenes about Golda’s own battle with cancer — when we

knew that she was going through the same thing.” But through it all she had remained cheerful, saying to the film crew: “What are your faces so down for?” Leonard Nimoy, her husband in “Golda," said she was very sick “when we were working together, but there was absolutely no sign. She wouldn’t let it interfere in any way. There was never any sign that we had to pamper or cater to her in any way. She just stood right up there and batted it out." Miss Bergman’s daughters arrived at London from New York yesterday and were expected to help decide on arrangements for the funeral. When her three daughters, Isabella and Ingrid, both aged 27, and Pia Lindstrom, aged 42, arrived, Pia said: “We are all very upset. Yesterday (Sunday) was mother’s birthday.”