Obituary: ‘Bibi’ Andersson, actor in over 90 films, Swedish Film Institute best actress four times

Bibi Andersson with Ingmar Bergman in 1959 (Picture: Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Bibi Andersson, the Swedish actress who starred in classic films by compatriot Ingmar Bergman, including The Seventh Seal and Persona has died. She was 83.

Andersson died on Sunday, said Martin Frostberg, spokesman for the Swedish Film Institute said.

The state-funded institute said on Monday Andersson was the only person to  have been named best actress four times in its annual awards.

In 1958, Andersson also shared the Best Actress award at the Cannes Film Festival for her performance in Bergman’s Brink of Life.

Five years later, she won Best Actress at the Berlin Film Festival for her performance in Vilgot Sjoman’s The Mistress.

“Her achievements in Swedish cinema cannot be overrated,” the Swedish Film Institute’s CEO, Anna Serner, said in a statement.

Andersson “will be forever remembered as one of Sweden’s truly great actors”, she added.

Born in Stockholm on 11 November, 1935, as Berit Elisabet Andersson, she appeared in more than 90 films, 13 of them directed by Bergman.

They first met in 1951 when Bergman directed a series of soap commercials featuring Andersson, according to the institute.

Andersson’s career expanded into major productions overseas in the 1970s. She appeared in movies by directors such as John Huston and Robert Altman and starred alongside actors including Paul Newman, Sidney Poitier and Steve McQueen.

She then turned to directing plays in Stockholm before suffering a stroke in 2009 and disappearing from the limelight.

She is survived by her daughter, Jenny, and her third husband, Gabriel Mora Baeza.