The scandalous affair that saw Ingrid Bergman exiled from Hollywood - 9Honey

The scandalous affair that saw Ingrid Bergman exiled from Hollywood

By Maddison Leach|

These days, Ingrid Bergman is remembered as one of the first "natural actresses" of Hollywood, adored and acclaimed for her performances in iconic films like Casablanca.

Held up as one of the big names of Hollywood's golden age, it's hard to believe there was ever a time when the Swedish-born star wasn't beloved.

Portrait of Ingrid Bergman. (Corbis via Getty Images)

Let alone a time when she was exiled from Hollywood, or the US, entirely.

But that's exactly what happened when Bergman's biggest scandal hit the news in 1950 and almost killed her career for good.

Who was Ingrid Bergman?

Born in Sweden in 1915, Bergman began her acting career in her home country before breaking into the European film industry.

She starred in a dozen Swedish films before eventually making her way to the US, where she would soon rise to fame as a new kind of Hollywood star.

Ingrid Bergmanwith Alfred HItchcock, and in the film Casablanca. (Sports & General Press Agency Lt)

Brought to America in the late 1930s to star in an English-language version of her Swedish film Intermezzo, there were plans to make Bergman more like her Hollywood counterparts.

According to the son of Hollywood producer David O. Selznick, who initially hired Bergman, Selznick wanted Bergman to fit American beauty standards.

"She didn't speak English, she was too tall, her name sounded too German, and her eyebrows were too thick," Selznick's son said of his father's concerns.

But Bergman refused to alter her appearance, and eventually it was decided her "natural" beauty would become her selling point.

Publicity still of Swedish actress Ingrid Bergman circa 1941. (Getty)

It turned out to be a wildly successful decision, and in the years that followed Bergman starred in several major Hollywood films.

In 1942 she appeared alongside Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca, one of her most well-known roles to this day.

READ MORE: How Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall fell in love on the silver screen

Bergman had left her husband Dr. Petter Aron Lindström and daughter Pia back home in Sweden, though they later joined her in the US.

The affair that rocked Hollywood

By the late 1940s, Bergman was a household name in the US and massive Hollywood heavyweight, having even won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in Gaslight.

The public adored her for her natural charm and clean-cut image, but that would all change in 1950 when she decided to work with Italian director Roberto Rossellini.

Actress Ingrid Bergman and director Roberto Rossellini inspect the Etruscan ruins. (Bettmann Archive)

Bergman already admired Rossellini's film work and wrote to him in 1949 asking to work with him, leading to her being cast in his volcano film Stromboli.

During production the pair began an illicit affair, despite both of them already being married.

Affairs weren't uncommon in Hollywood at the time, but the public was horrified someone like Bergman would be caught up in such a controversy.

"People saw me [as] a saint. I'm not. I'm just a woman."

Though Rossellini had a reputation for sleeping with his colleagues, Bergman's virtuous image would be destroyed when the affair was discovered.

The affair was, of course, found out and splashed across the pages of newspapers and tabloids, along with an even juicer detail that scandalised America: Bergman was pregnant with Rossellini's child.

In an instant Bergman's reputation was destroyed, her film offers, brand deals and studio connections in the US disappearing in an instant.

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Bergman with her three children from her relationship with Rossellini. (Fairfax Media)

While the morals of the 1950s certainly played a massive role in Bergman's downfall, it didn't help that her film work had made the whole world view her as a virginal angel capable of nothing as salacious as the Rossellini affair.

"People saw me in Joan of Arc, and declared me a saint. I'm not. I'm just a woman, another human being," Bergman would later say of the public outcry.

Exiled from America

With few options left for work in the US and little incentive to return to a public who now loathed her, Bergman chose to stay in Italy with Rossellini after the affair became public.

Dr. Peter Lindstrom with his and Bergman's daughter Pia in 1951. (Reuterphoto)

The one thing she would have returned for was her daughter Pia, but Bergman's husband Petter Lindstrom made that difficult, refusing to divorce her for almost a year.

A vicious custody battle followed, and Bergman's residence in Italy and effective exile from the US was used against her. She didn't see Pia for seven years as a result.

Meanwhile even US politicians were speaking out against Bergman for "glamourising free-love", demanding her films not be screened in the US.

One senator even took to the US senate floor to publicly tear into the star, following his comments there with even more heated statements about her.

RELATED: Why Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward were Hollywood's 'golden couple'

Actress Ingrid Bergman. (Corbis via Getty Images)

Colorado senator Edwin C Johnson called Bergman everything from a "vile free-love cultist" to a "powerful influence for evil", stirring up even more controversy.

As a result, Bergman spent most of the 1950s away from the US, marrying Rossellini in 1950 before divorcing him in 1957, after welcoming three children together.

A star is reborn

In 1956, Bergman made the bold decision to return to Hollywood in a starring role in the film Anastasia, which focused on the 'lost' Russian princess of the same name.

Though the film was produced in Europe, meaning she didn't have to physically return to the US, it was a hit with American audiences.

Bergman's scandal and exile only increased interest in the film, and in 1957 she won the Best Actress Oscar for a second time for her performance as Anastasia.

Ingrid Bergman (1915-1982), in a publicity portrait issued for the film, 'Anastasia', 1956. (Getty)

Still wary of the US public, Bergman skipped the ceremony, but her co-star Cary Grant accepted the award with a pointed statement.

"Dear Ingrid, if you can hear me or see this, I want you to know we all send you our love and admiration."

Her subsequent roles in Murder on the Orient Express and Cactus Flower helped her win back the US audience that had abandoned her, and even Senator Johnson apologised for his comments against her.

Though her affair wasn't forgotten entirely, her divorce from Rossellini in 1957 helped her image, and Bergman continued to star in American films for decades until her death in 1982.

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