Liv: the name rhymes with believe, achieve—or grieve. Also Eve. In Norwegian it means "life." It fits the face—the glints of crystalline fjords and upland meadows in the eyes and hair, the shadowy secrets around the wide, sensual mouth. It carries the aura of innocence, of candor, of mischief.
THE role was one of the choicest movie plums in years: Catherine, the beguiling Shangri-La schoolmistress in the musical remake of Lost Horizon. The actress had to combine a peasant beauty with innate grace, be sweet yet sexy, and convey enough emotional depth to make Peter Finch—or any other man—willing to trudge over a snow-blown Himalaya for her. Audrey Hepburn was the sort of woman the part called for, and in fact Audrey was one of the prime prospects. But the part went to Liv Ullmann.
To that bit of casting news, Hollywood had a ready reply: Liv who? Ah, yes, the girl in all those Ingmar Bergman films. But wasn't she a trifle rarefied—an art-house actress? A specialist in gloomy Nordic agonies?
Not at all, as insiders discovered when they saw preview glimpses of her singing and dancing in Lost Horizon. The word, that magic electricity in the film business, went out: somebody fresh and exciting had arrived. Soon it became time to cast the movie adaptation of Broadway's Forty Carats. What was needed was a deft comedienne who could also encompass the transformation from faceless widow to a sparkling "older woman" who carries on an affair with a 20-year-old boy. An Elizabeth Taylor, perhaps. Producer Mike Frankovich wanted Liv Ullmann—so much so that he was willing to have the part rewritten to suit her, lowering the matron's age and making her Scandinavian-born.
The fever steadily gained momentum. Warner Bros, was planning its new version of the Garbo classic about Sweden's 17th century Queen Christina, who converted from Protestantism to Catholicism and abdicated to spend the rest of her life in Rome. The studio had been thinking of Vanessa Redgrave for the title role, with its demands for classical style and impassioned nobility. But no—who better than Liv Ullmann?
All of which means that a new star is about to burst onto U.S. movie screens, starting with the release of Lost Horizon next spring. Currently, audiences in New York City and Los Angeles can see her in a remarkable Swedish epic called The Emigrants (see ESSAY). Hundreds of new stars have burst onto U.S. screens before, of course, many of them producers' playmates, oversold or overaged stage ingenues, voices without bodies, bodies without voices, paper dolls cut out of publicity releases, inflatable, rubberized sex bombs. Liv is something different. Lost Horizon Producer Ross Hunter says, with characteristic modesty: "As soon as I met her I knew that if she would let me I could make her the most attractive woman on the screen. I decided to take a chance on her because I wanted to launch another Ingrid Bergman."