Briefly explain how the public’s conflation of a star’s artistic persona with his or her private personality affected the career of actress Ingrid Bergman

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Answer: The ideal answer should include:
1. Ingrid Bergman’s much-publicized love affair with Italian director Roberto Rossellini created a scandalous uproar in the United States in the late 1940s. It nearly wrecked her career, not to speak of her psyche.
2. She was a victim of her own public image, which had been carefully nurtured by her boss, producer David O. Selznick. In the public mind, Bergman was a wholesome, almost saintly woman—modest and simple, a happy wife and mother.
3. This image was buttressed by her most popular roles: the radiantly ethereal Ilsa in Casablanca, the fervent political idealist in For Whom the Bell Tolls, the warm, indomitable mother superior in The Bells of St. Mary’s, and the noble warrior-saint of Joan of Arc.
4. In reality, Bergman was an ambitious artist, anxious to play a variety of roles, including villainess parts.
5. When she and Rossellini met, they soon fell in love, and though still married to her first husband, Bergman became pregnant with Rossellini’s child. When her condition became public, the press had a field day, attacking her for “betraying” her public. She was reviled by religious groups and even denounced from the floor of the U.S. Senate, where she was described as “Hollywood’s apostle of degradation” and “a free-love cultist.”
6. Bergman and Rossellini married in 1950, but their joint movies were boycotted in the United States, and she remained out of the country for several years. She was apparently “forgiven” in 1956, when she won her second Academy Award (Best Actress) for her performance in Anastasia, a big box-office success.