Ingrid Bergman had a tragic and lonely childhood marked by the loss of her entire immediate family by the time she was a teenager. Born in Stockholm, Sweden, on August 29, 1915, her early youth was defined by immense personal grief, an isolated upbringing, and a deeply rooted passion for performance that served as an escape from her sadness.
She was the only surviving child of Swedish photographer and artist Justus Samuel Bergman and his German-born wife, Frieda “Friedel” Henriette Auguste Louise Adler. The couple had lost two infants earlier. Ingrid was named after Princess Ingrid of Sweden. Her parents had a long courtship before marrying in 1907; Justus ran a successful photography shop on Strandvägen in Stockholm, and the family lived in a large apartment there.
Friedel died of liver disease in January 1918, when Ingrid was about two and a half. Ingrid later said she had almost no personal memories of her mother and described the lasting effect as “living with an ache” that began so early she was not fully aware of it. Justus filmed young Ingrid putting flowers on her mother’s grave.
Justus raised her with help from his unmarried sister, Aunt Ellen (sometimes called “Mama” by Ingrid), who moved in around 1918–1920 and became a maternal figure. He was affectionate, artistic, and devoted; he photographed and filmed his daughter constantly (she later joked she was “perhaps the most photographed child in Scandinavia”), encouraged her love of dancing and dressing up, and hoped she might become an opera singer (she took voice lessons for about three years). He exposed her to music, art, and theater. She was shy in everyday life but expressive when performing, inventing imaginary friends and imitating people. Summers were often spent with her maternal grandparents and relatives in Germany (especially Hamburg), where she became fluent in German; the household atmospheres mixed Lutheran strictness with more relaxed artistic influences from her father.
Justus died of stomach cancer in 1929, when Ingrid was about 13. Aunt Ellen died of heart disease roughly six months later. Orphaned, Ingrid briefly stayed with Ellen, then moved in with other relatives, primarily her Uncle Otto and Aunt Hulda (who had five children of their own). She attended schools including the Lyceum for Girls in Stockholm and was not especially academic or popular there.
By her mid-teens she was drawn to acting. Around age 15 she worked as an extra in a film studio (finding it thrilling) and later gained admission to the Royal Dramatic Theatre School in Stockholm. She left after about a year to pursue film work full-time, making her first credited appearance in the mid-1930s.
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