18 December 2013

Aino Taube

Aino Taube (1912-1990) played in many Swedish films of the 1930s and 1940s. She’s best known as Laila, the beautiful orphan girl from Lapland, but later she also appeared in films by Ingmar Bergman.

Aino Taube in Laila
Dutch postcard by M. Bonnist & Zonen, Amsterdam, Z., no. 1225. Photo: Fan Film. Publicity still for Laila (George Schnéevoigt, 1937).

Orphan

Aino Taube was born in Espergærde, Denmark, in 1912. She was the daughter of actor Mattias Taube.

She was trained at the Dramatens elevskola, the drama school in Stockholm, from 1930 till 1932, and she would later also teach there from 1955 till 1988.

In 1931 she made her film debut in the comedy Skepparkärlek/Ship of Love (Ivar Johansson, 1931).

In the 1930s and 1940s she would appear in 28 films, including Sången om den eldröda blomman/Man's Way with Women (Per-Axel Branner, 1934), Familjen som var en karusell/The Family That Was a Carousel (Schamyl Bauman, 1936), and Sara lär sig folkvett/Sara Learns Manners (Gustaf Molander, 1937).

Her breakthrough was her title role in Laila (George Schneevoigt, 1937). Laila tells the story of Lap herders who rescue a baby from a herd of wolves, name her Laila and their struggles and trials over the years. Aino Taube played the orphan as an adult.

Director George Schneevoigt was praised for the rugged beauty of Lapland. The pictorial beauty of the country - and of Taube - plus the sweeping action shots of wolves attacking the herder's reindeer while moving across the tundra made the film an international success.

Aino Taube
Dutch postcard by M. Bonnist & Zonen, Amsterdam, Z., no. 1224. Photo: Fan Film. Publicity still for Laila (George Schnéevoigt, 1937).

Secrets of Women


In the following years Aino Taube made films like Gubben kommer/Gubben is Coming (Per Lindberg, 1939) with Victor Sjöström, En enda natt/One Single Night (Gustaf Molander, 1939) with Ingrid Bergman, and Med livet som insats/They Staked Their Lives (Thor L. Brooks, Alf Sjöberg, 1940).

From 1950 on, Taube worked for the theatre ensemble of the Swedish television. Between 1954 and 1982 she was also a permanent actress of the Kungliga Dramatiska Teatern (Royal Dramatic Theatre), the national stage of Sweden.

Among her later films were Ingmar Bergman’s Kvinnors väntan/Secrets of Women (1952) with Anita Björk, För min heta ungdoms skull/For the Sake of My Intemperate Youth (Arne Mattsson, 1952), Fadern/The Father (Alf Sjöberg, 1969), and The Touch (Ingmar Bergman, 1971), Bergman's first English-language film.

In the psychological drama Ansikte mot ansikte/Face to Face (Ingmar Bergman, 1976), she played the grandmother who haunts Liv Ullmann's character in her visions.

In 1981 Taube was honored with the O’Neill stipendium, a prestigious Swedish theatre award. Her last film role was in Friends (Kjell-Åke Andersson, 1988) with Stellan Skarsgård and Lena Olin.

Aino Taube died in 1990 in Stockholm. She was married to actor and film director Anders Henrikson, in whose films she often appeared. Their son is actor Mathias Henrikson.


Scene from Ansikte mot ansikte/Face to Face (1976). Source: Lilitesen (YouTube).

Sources: AllMovie, Wikipedia and IMDb.

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