COLLEGE GETS BERGMAN MEMORABILIA

Ingrid Bergman’s children say they wanted memorabilia from the late actress’ life available to film scholars, not hidden away in a private collection.

Wesleyan University has announced that Bergman’s four children had donated memorabilia and the actress’ personal papers to the Wesleyan Cinema Archives.

The collection includes material from the actress’ childhood and photographs from her earliest Swedish films as well as studio portraits by Lord Snowdon and letters from Ernest Hemingway and John Steinbeck.

Bergman died at her London home on her 67th birthday on Aug. 29, 1982, after an eight-year battle with cancer.

“It’s a remarkable collection, lovely and touching, in that Mother saved everything,” Pia Lindstrom said in a statement issued by Wesleyan announcing the gift from her and Bergman’s other children, Robertino Rossellini, Isabella Rossellini and Ingrid Rossellini.

“She knew from the time she was a child that these things had value. Instead of dividing it among us, the family felt that the collection was valuable to film history, and we wanted it accessible to scholars,” Lindstrom said.

The collection will be open to researchers later in 1987, after the material has been catalogued, registered and installed in the archives, a film and television research center opened earlier this year at the small, liberal arts college.

The collection spans Bergman’s childhood career through her last role the television production “A Woman Called Golda,” for which she won a 1982 Emmy Award.

The photographs, correspondence, scrapbooks, diaries, scripts and costumes document Bergman’s years in Hollywood, including her American debut in David O. Selznick’s production of “Intermezzo,” her performances in such classic films as “Casablanca,” “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” “Spellbound,” “Notorious,” and in her Academy Award-winning roles as best actress in “Gaslight” and “Anastasia” and best supporting actress in “Murder on the Orient Express.”

Two other collections were recently added to the archives, the Raoul Walsh collection, a gift of the action-film director’s widow, Mary Walsh, and the Kay Francis collection, a gift of the Museum of Modern Art.

The archives also house the complete career collections of directors Frank Capra and Elia Kazan.