Ingrid Bergman passed away on a day like today, 28 years ago. It was also her 67th birthday.
You have to be one classy human being, to pass away on the day you were born in. Don't get me wrong, I don't mean to be disrespectful, what I'm trying to say is that this unfortunate coincidence works as a perfect metaphor to encompass the gracefulness, elegance and tact that Ms. Bergman embodied.
Ever so concise, effortlessly direct and charmingly pragmatic, she made a career for herself based on quite economical acting.
Tell me, is there any other actor who never appeared to make a false step onscreen? Even in not so good films like Anastasia and Under Capricorn, there is not a single thing Ms. Bergman did that did not seem authentic.
Disguising her broken heart in Casablanca she makes fools out of Humphrey Bogart, Paul Henreid and us. In Autumn Sonata she makes us despise her coldness but wonder what made her this way and in the haunting Europa '51 she becomes almost saintlike without losing her humanity.
Tonight, when, and if, you're watching the Emmys, remember that in her very last performance, she played Golda Meir in the made for television special A Woman Called Golda.There with the same effortlessness she relied on throughout her legendary career she plays a woman who made leading an entire country, in the midst of economic, political and societal turmoil, seem like the easiest thing in the world.
It might not be my favorite performance of hers but watching it and realizing that the actress behind the makeup was terminally ill, has much to say about the way in which Bergman devoted herself to the character.
It was never about her.
May she rest in peace.
