Jamie McCarthy/Getty Isabella Rossellini
To much of the world, Ingrid Bergman was a movie star. The Oscar winner starred in iconic films such as Casablanca, Gaslight, Notorious and Murder on the Orient Express. But to Isabella Rossellini, Bergman was simply “Mama.”
A star in her own right, Rossellini is known for movies such as Death Becomes Her, Blue Velvet and Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, as well as famously being a face of Lancôme cosmetics and serving as Ross’s “hall pass” on an episode of Friends. (Her one-woman show, Darwin’s Smile — about the intersection of art and science — will travel to San Francisco and Los Angeles in October. Rossellini, who has a master’s degree in animal behavior and conservation, says the show is a lesson on both evolution and acting, two subjects she’s studied heavily. “Darwin wondered if the innate expression of certain emotions like smiling was shaped by evolution.”)
Today Rossellini is looking back on the 40th anniversary of her mother’s death with love, respect and even an evolved sense of understanding. Bergman died on her 67th birthday, Aug. 29, 1982.
“If I could say anything to Mama, I would say, ‘Thank you.’ I think of her every day,” she says. “When people pass, the relationship with the person remains at the moment when they passed. But they often don’t evolve. But for me — ‘as time goes by,’ to quote Casablanca, I find myself understanding Mama even more. The admiration for my mom has augmented.”
“Not admiration as an actress,” Rossellini explains. “That was always there, but just as a human being. I understood how hard she fought.”
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Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Ingrid Bergman and Isabella Rossellini in 1971
She mentions how in 1950 tabloid uproar when Bergman — married at the time to Petter Lindström — fell in love with the director Roberto Rossellini. The fury reached the U.S. capitol. “All that controversy and that attack, even the American Senate took a stand against my mom. And for her to stand her ground and say ‘This is the man I want to marry. We’re going to have three children.’ She did have three children from my dad. That’s pretty amazing, I think.”
Rossellini, now 70, notes that her mother died just as her career began. “I got my first cover of Vogue in 1982, the year my mom died. She never saw my success as an actress. She was not with me when I had my own children or became a grandmother.” But, she says, Bergman left behind her individualistic spirit.
Bettmann/Getty Ingrid Bergman with her kids in 1953
“I always loved my mom. I was never critical of her. She was always very independent and strong,” Rossellini says. “And I think it probably came from the fact that she was an orphan. Her mother died when she was 2 and her father died when she was 14. So she really had to fend for herself. She was born in Sweden, and then when Garbo was retiring they recruited her to come to Hollywood.”
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Rossellini tells the story of when her mother was offered a part in what would be her 1939 Hollywood debut — a remake of her own 1936 Swedish film Intermezzo.
“The producer, David O. Selznick, said to her, ‘Okay, now we have to make you more sophisticated. We’re gonna change your eyebrows and do this and that.’ And Mama said, ‘Absolutely not. I have a big career in Sweden, I’ve done 11 films, I’m married and have a daughter. I’m already known — and I’m not going to change myself.'”
Bert Hardy/Picture Post/Hulton Archive/Getty
“Mama had this physical energy, like a Scandinavian Viking. When she walked, I always felt I was behind her, trying to catch up. My own daughter Elettra [Wiedeman] has that. She’s tall and strong like Mama, with me trotting behind. I’m still catching up to Mama today.”
“What I would really want to tell her is that I understand how difficult it must have been, to be working all the time. And I know that she felt guilty, as I felt guilty, for working. But I am the first one to tell my daughter, ‘No, do not. It’s an example to your children.’ Independence comes first with financial independence.”
“I remember, when she was filming, people would say, ‘Your mother is working, are you feeling lonely?’ ‘Yes, I’m feeling lonely,’ I would say. ‘I want her to come home, I can’t wait to have her home.’ But, Mama, you gave me a gift. The gift of self-determination.”
Virginie Lancon
Rossellini doesn’t merely honor her mother with words. Mama’s Farm is a 28-acre spread in Brookhaven, New York, and is designed to be like an Italian piazza, offering theater, workshops and community-supported agriculture (CSA). This past year Mama’s Farm — founded by Rossellini and run by Wiedeman — added a boutique inn to the property.
“The rooms are very personal,” Rossellini says. “There is one room dedicated to my dad, with his race car helmets. Another one dedicated to [ex-partner] David Lynch. Another one to my chickens.” And, of course, there is one dedicated to her mother: “It’s filled with her collection of hats. Mama is always around the farm.”
Rossellini’s one-woman show Darwin’s Smile is at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco Oct 2-5 and at the Luckman Theatre in Los Angeles Oct. 8-9.
