Gerda Lundequist and Sonja Kristina – the Gösta Berling connection

Sonja and Gerda - generational talents

It’s strange the connections you make in your life as well as in silent film which, after all is history itself and not just a representation of past events. Without knowing it at the time, I spent a number of pleasant afternoons in the company of Cecil Hepworth’s daughter Elizabeth Barbara – the young star of Rescued by Rover (1901) and her sister Margaret as my friends were renting their basement in the 1990s.

It was also a surprise a few years ago, to see Sonja Kristina, the pioneering singer, actress and leading lady of progressive rock, folk and beyond, posting on Facebook some year’s back about her Swedish grandmother Gerda Lundequist, a Swedish stage legend and the star of Gösta Berling's Saga which, as I think I mentioned is screening this Sunday 19^th at the BFI! Knowing the connection, I asked Sonja for a few memories about her grandmother and it seems the “performance gene” runs strongly in their family!

Born in 1871, Gerda was the daughter of a hairdresser but was fostered by her mother’s sister a manufacturer’s widow. She had theatrical ambitions from an early age and she was enrolled in theatre school in Stockholm at just 15. At this stage in her own career, Sonja had already started singing in folk clubs and, also in her teens, enrolled at the New College of Speech and Drama before staring in the theatrical version of Hair along with the likes of Paul Nicholas, Elaine Page and the late Diane Langton.

Gerda Lundequist in costume in 1906

Gerda’s professional debut was at Svenska teatern in Stockholm 1889, and her breakthrough soon came her portrayal of Kristina in August Strindberg’s Mäster Olof at the old Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm. She was soon starring in almost every conceivable major role in plays from Ibsen, Schiller, Moliere, Shakespeare and others establishing herself as Sweden’s finest actress and it must have been a huge coup for Mauritz Stiller to get her for the role of as Margaretha Samzelius, the matron at Ekeby in Gösta Berling.

Gerda’s daughter Cecelia married an English criminologist called Shaw and moved to the UK. Sonja remembers meeting her on a number of occasions:

I was 10 years old when Gerda died in 1959… she had come to stay with us in England when I was 6 and we visited with her in Stockholm and at her summer home.

Gerda’s professional reputation was one of strict principles and, not enjoying interviews, she soon refused all offers and was a very private person, protecting herself and her family from intrusion. Yet she was also described as a very warm and humorous person by those who did know her and this is confirmed by Sonja’s recollections:

I remember her sitting at my mother’s dressing table brushing her beautiful long auburn tinted hair before braiding it and putting it up. Her perfume was lovely and I will always remember the aroma of her favourite digestive biscuits with honey that she enjoyed as a night-time snack.

Sonja Kristina

Gerda was an ardent supporter of female emancipation in Sonja’s words and she was able to support talent through her work as artistic director at Helsingborg City Theatre and then later as a teacher at drama schools. She contributed to the independent women’s education centre Kvinnliga medborgarskolan vid Fogelstad, for which she was also a member of the board of trustees.

Sonja describes the school as a feminist and that her mother, recovering from TB, shared several stimulating and entertaining months with Gerda and her students at Foglestad.

She also relates the tutoring and encouragement she had from Gerda and her hugely experienced eye for talent: She liked to listen to me sing and encouraged me with gentle instruction on breathing technique and interpretation.

She remained such an important figure in Sweden hosting celebrity soirees at her apartment and performing on radio and television right up until the late fifties. Sonja’s mother was frequently asked for autographs by school friends and no doubt, had she grown up in Stockholm, the same would have been true then.

Gerda with Greta Garbo in Gösta.

But to Sonja and her family, the private side of her grandmother was no less precious and, especially the playful bond they developed.

Gerda was so mischievous, making grand entrances at public gatherings. Stopping traffic in the street to talk to horses - and policemen.

She was perfectly cast in Gösta Berling's Saga and, also, it seems as a mother and grandmother.

 

I am delighted that Sonja and her own grandchildren will be attending the screening on Sunday 19^th and I hope you will too and witness one of the finest actors of the last 150 years pouring decades of experience into one of her precious few cinematic appearances!

 

You can book your place here!

The cast of Hair in 1968, Sonja spent over two years in the show, here on the lower right!