Mimi Pollak


Maria Helena "Mimi" Pollak was a Swedish actress and theatre director.

Biography

Pollak was born in Karlstad, Värmland, to Austrian-Jewish parents and was trained in the performing arts at the prestigious Royal Dramatic Training Academy in Stockholm from 1922 to 1924.
Pollak worked in the 1920s and 1930s as a film actress, and as a stage actress, mainly at the Blanche Theatre in Stockholm and at the Helsingborg City Theatre. She returned as an actress to the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm in 1942.
In 1948, Pollak became the first contracted female director at the Royal Dramatic Theatre with the production of Jean Genet's Jungfruleken, starring Anita Björk and Maj-Britt Nilsson in the leads. Pollak became a successful director at the Royal Dramatic Theatre and staged altogether 60 plays at the national stage over the years.
After her 1922 debut in the film Amatörfilmen, she appeared in about 30 film and TV productions. Notable film roles are her supporting parts in Schamyl Bauman's film comedy Skolka skolan, in Vilgot Sjöman's Klänningen, as the piano teacher in Ingmar Bergman's Höstsonaten starring Ingrid Bergman, in Ingenjör Andrées luftfärd starring Max von Sydow and directed by Jan Troell, and in the popular Swedish TV mystery Agnes Cecilia – en sällsam historia adapted from the successful books by Maria Gripe.
She retired in 1975, but made a stage comeback in 1991, aged 87, in Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya.
She was sometimes credited as Mimmi Pollak, Mimi Pollack or Mimmi Pollack.

Personal life

Pollak attended the Royal Dramatic Training Academy in Stockholm with fellow actress Greta Garbo from 1922 to 1924. Garbo moved to the US in 1925, but they maintained contact for over 60 years. Their relationship and letters are portrayed in the Swedish book Djävla älskade unge!, written by Tin Andersén Axell, and in Garbo's personal writings, released in Sweden the same year.
Pollak was married to Swedish actor Nils Lundell from 1927 to 1938, and together they had a son.

Selected filmography