Naima Wifstrand

Naima Wifstrand
Naima Wifstrand, 1950s
Born	Siri Naima Matilda Wifstrand (1890-09-04)4 September 1890 , United Kingdoms of Sweden and Norway
Died	23 October 1968(1968-10-23) (aged 78) Stockholm, Sweden
Occupation	Actress, singer, composer
Years active	1905–1968
Spouse(s)	Captain Erling Nielsen (1921–1928)

Naima Wifstrand (pronounced [ˈnaːjmá viːfˈstrand]; 4 September 1890 – 23 October 1968) was a Swedish film actress, operetta singer, troubadour, director and composer. Internationally, she was most notable for strong supporting parts in her later years in a number of Ingmar Bergman-films.

Born Siri Naima Matilda Wifstrand in in 1890, she was raised by her mother in Fleminggatan. Wifstrand never trained acting but learned the art thoroughly when she in 1905 joined the Anna Lundberg Theatre Company, a well reputed and respected theatre company in Sweden at the time. She travelled with them for a number of years, appearing in small parts and in extra parts. This eventually led her to small parts at theatres in Helsinki and around . But at this time Wifstrand did not have her mind set on acting, instead she sought to be a singer. And it was as a grand operetta singer she became famous and enjoyed a much successful star career for 30 years in Sweden (her speaking parts as an actress came long after; when she after singing-career gradually turned to acting in the 1940s and then earned acclaim as one of Sweden's finest supporting and character actresses on stage and film).

Wifstrand studied music and singing in Stockholm at the Swedish Royal Academy of Music and in 1910 she went to London and further trained for Raymond von zur Mühlen. After her studies she was one of the most acknowledged operetta singers in Scandinavia. She worked at Oscarsteatern (Sweden's foremost operetta and musical stage) 1913-1918 and for years to come toured Sweden and Scandinavia. Her big break-through came as Countess Stasi in Emmerich Kálmán's operetta Die Csárdásfürstin in 1916. She worked in the 1920s mainly at the opera houses in Oslo and Copenhagen. For many years she lived in London where she also performed with troubadour-songs alone along with her guitar. A curiosity here is that when the first attempts at broadcast television took place in Britain Wifstrand became one of the first "TV-stars", so to speak, as she appeared on TV in the 1930s and performed a number of songs.