Olof Winnerstrand

Olof Winnerstrand
Winnerstrand, ca 1940.
Born	Carl Olof Magnus Winnerstrand (1875-08-26)26 August 1875 , Sweden
Died	16 July 1956(1956-07-16) (aged 80) Stockholm, Sweden
Nationality	Swedish
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1901–1955
Spouse(s)	Frida Winnerstrand (m. 1906–43)

Carl Olof Magnus Winnerstrand (26 August 1875 – 16 July 1956) was a Swedish actor.

Born in a bourgeois home in , Winnerstrand was a son of the well-known Stockholm goldsmith and jeweller C.A. Winnerstrand, and started out in his father's footsteps, learning the trade. His parents opposed his acting dreams and, being loyal to a promise to his father, he took over the family business when his father died in 1899, and worked a couple of years as goldsmith. However, his longing for the stage increased and he was encouraged by great Swedish actor Emil Hillberg in pursuing in acting, after he had witnessed Winnerstrand's striking talent and by offering a place in his theatre company. Now, this time with the blessing of his mother, he sold the family company and joined Hillberg's theatre troupe.

Olof Winnerstrand made his professional debut in 1901 at Helsingborg City Theatre and then toured with the Hillberg Company in 1901-02 and then with the famous Selander Company 1902-04, where he met his future wife and the love of his life, Miss Frida Kumlin (the couple married in 1906 and for decades was one of Swedish theatre's most popular and beloved theatre couple, often performing opposite each other on stage as well). In 1906 he was contracted by the notorious theatre manager Albert Ranft to play at Vasateatern (Vasa Theatre), the theatre stage above all in Sweden with a tradition of playing farces and comedies. Here Winnerstrand rose to star fame in the late 1900s as a top comedy actor, for years performing leading parts in numerous farces and comedies popular of those days by Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw, Georges Feydeau and Georges Berr (in many of the original Swedish stagings of the plays); such as his Mr Ernest in Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, Mr Valentine in Shaw's You Never Can Tell, in Franz Arnold's & Ernst Bach's The Spanish Fly (Die Spanische Fliege; Spanska flugan) and as Vicomte Goring in Wilde's An Ideal Husband.