Mai Zetterling

Mai Elisabeth Zetterling (Swedish pronunciation: [ˈmajː ²sɛtːɛˌɭɪŋ]; 24 May 1925 - 17 March 1994) was a Swedish actress and film director. 2Early life Zetterling was born in Västerås, Västmanland, Sweden, to a working class family. She started her career as an actress at the age of 17 at Dramaten, the Swedish national theatre, appearing in war-era films. 2Career Zetterling appeared in film and television productions spanning six decades from the 1940s to the 1990s. Her breakthrough came in the 1944 film Torment written by Ingmar Bergman, in which she played a controversial role as a tormented shopgirl. Shortly afterwards she moved to England and gained instant success there with her title role in Basil Dearden's Frieda (1947) playing opposite David Farrar. After a brief return to Sweden in which she worked with Bergman again in his film Music in Darkness (1948), she returned to England and starred in a number of English films, playing against such leading men as Tyrone Power, Dirk Bogarde, Richard Widmark, Laurence Harvey, Peter Sellers, Herbert Lom, Richard Attenborough, Keenan Wynn, Stanley Baker, and Dennis Price. Some of her notable films as an actress include Quartet (1948), a film based on some of W. Somerset Maugham's short stories, The Romantic Age (1949) directed by Edmond T. Gréville, Only Two Can Play (1962) co-starring Peter Sellers and directed by Sidney Gilliat, and The Witches (1990), an adaptation of Roald Dahl's book directed by Nicolas Roeg. Having gained a reputation as a sex symbol in dramas and thrillers, she was equally effective in comedies, and also was very active in British television in the 50s and 60s. She began directing in the early 1960s, starting with political documentaries and a short film called The War Game (1962), which was nominated for a BAFTA award, and won a Silver Lion at Venic