Sif Ruud

Biography

Sif Ruud (born Stockholm, 6 May 1916; died 15 August 2011) was a Swedish film actress whose career spanned much of the country's postwar cinema. The daughter of Einar Ruud and Inez Engström, she began acting in 1938 and went on to appear in around 140 films, making her one of the most prolific performers of her generation in Swedish cinema.

Her early career overlapped with the flourishing of Swedish film in the 1940s and 1950s, with titles such as It Rains on Our Love (1946) and Port of Call (1948). She also worked repeatedly with Ingmar Bergman, appearing in To Joy (1950), Wild Strawberries (1957), where she played Aunt Olga, and Face to Face (1976) was a later work; her Bergman roles remain the best known part of her output. Across her career she moved between family drama, comedy and character parts. She won the Guldbagge Award for Best Actress for her role in A Walk in the Sun.

She stayed active on screen for decades, with films in Sweden and abroad well into the 1990s. She died in August 2011, aged 95. Her legacy lies in a large filmography that traces the development of Swedish cinema across several decades.

Key films

• Wild Strawberries (1957): Aunt Olga, one of her most remembered roles.
• Face to Face (1976): a later Bergman-related film in her career.
• To Joy (1950): a Bergman drama in which she appeared alongside Swedish stage and screen actors.
• It Rains on Our Love (1946): one of her early postwar films.
• Port of Call (1948): a representative title of 1940s Swedish cinema.
• Only a Mother (1949): a drama in which she played a woman defined by motherhood.