Actress, 69, Puts Ageist Ideas to Rest

Swedish-born Viveca Lindfors is that rare actress who continues to work in movies as she approaches her 70th birthday.

Perhaps her screen longevity can be attributed to her high cheekbones, an arresting contralto, her soaring talent or maybe her Scandinavian genes.

In any case, she is one of the stars of the new movie “Misplaced,” playing a contemporary Polish expatriate making a home for her family in the United States.

How many other actresses, excepting Lillian Gish and Katharine Hepburn, have worked in films for half a century?

She made her movie debut in Sweden in 1941 in “The Crazy Family.” Her first Hollywood film was “The Adventures of Don Juan” with Errol Flynn in 1948.

A veteran of the theater and television as well, Lindfors has played a dozen nationalities in her 70 films and 50 plays.

Age, she says, should not shorten an actor’s professional life. After all, the world is filled with people in their 70s and 80s.

Of her role as Zofia, the Polish grandmother in “Misplaced,” she said:

“ ‘Misplaced’ is unusual because it is a story that includes a major role for a woman of my generation.

“Yes, there are films about older people, such as ‘Cocoon,’ but the focus of the film is on a group of individuals in their 70s and 80s. This movie involves three generations, including my character’s daughters and a grandson,” she explained.

“Now, I’m going to make a boring comment. We see older men in movies quite frequently. But it seems that women are not allowed to grow old in Hollywood.

“There is a whole slew of really wonderful male character actors, but not so many character actresses. That’s because men run the industry.

“It would appear that there are millions of women who would like to see characters on the screen with whom they can identify, women their age who are not stereotyped,” she said.

“Maybe it is necessary for women of my generation to write and produce some motion pictures themselves.”

To that end, Lindfors wrote, produced and directed “Unfinished Business,” a short movie for the American Film Institute. She also co-produced film versions of “The Jewish Wife” and “The Stronger.”

“Older women can be sexually exciting,” she said. “In ‘Unfinished Business,’ I wrote love scenes and a shot in which I run around naked. I have an incredible scene in a Jacuzzi with myself and a young girl with whom my character’s husband is having an affair.

“The older woman gets her husband back.”