In 1949 Ingrid Bergman was the star of Casablanca, an Oscar winner, the highest-paid actress in Hollywood and the most beloved woman in America. Within a year she was pregnant by a married Italian director, denounced from pulpits on two continents, and called “a powerful influence for evil” on the floor of the United States Senate.
It began with a fan letter. Bergman wrote to Roberto Rossellini offering to work with him; he wrote back at once, flew to Beverly Hills, and slept in her spare room for three weeks while her husband ran her money and her calendar. Then came Stromboli, a volcano island with no hotel, Anna Magnani’s revenge, and a pregnancy the gossip columnists raced each other to print. Hollywood had sold her as the one star who would never do this, and it punished her for exactly that. Seven years later, the same town gave her a standing ovation.
In this documentary:
• The Italian in the spare room, Beverly Hills, January 1949
• How Selznick sold “the one honest thing in Hollywood”
• The letter to a stranger, and the reply
• Stromboli, Anna Magnani and the war of the two volcanoes
• Louella Parsons, Hedda Hopper and the scoop
• The Senate speech: “a powerful influence for evil”
• Pia on the witness stand
• Anastasia, the Oscar, and the standing ovation
• The daughter of the scandal: Isabella Rossellini
Chapters:
0:00 The Most Beloved Woman In America
0:36 The Man In The Spare Room
1:26 The Bet
2:21 The One Honest Thing In Hollywood
4:58 A Letter To A Stranger
6:52 He Writes Back At Once
8:56 Two Volcanoes
11:13 Faster Than The Mail
13:09 Collecting The Debt
13:40 Sold As The One Who Wouldn’t
15:47 A Powerful Influence For Evil
18:21 The Girl On The Stand
19:51 The Same Room, On Its Feet
22:53 The Daughter Of The Love Thief
Hollywood Retrospective tells the true stories behind old Hollywood’s scandals, legends and forgotten lives, taken from the record and not the gossip.
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