Ingrid Thulin, 77; Actress in Ingmar Bergman Films

Ingrid Thulin, who many critics ranked with Greta Garbo and Ingrid Bergman as the cream of Sweden’s actresses, died Wednesday in a Stockholm hospital, Swedish news agency TT reported. She reportedly was 77, although some sources gave a birth date that would have made her 74.

Thulin, a cool and beautiful blond who starred in “Wild Strawberries” and other films by legendary Swedish film director Ingmar Bergman, had lived in Rome since the 1960s but had returned to Sweden for treatment of an unspecified illness.

Film critic David Thomson wrote of Thulin that her films for Bergman “were crucial in showing the harrowing trauma that waits on a beautiful woman.”

“That expressive face has doleful eyes unable to forget pain and a wide mouth that can convey passionate suffering and fraught pleasure,” Thomson wrote in “The New Biographical Dictionary of Film.”

Born Jan. 27, 1926, in Sollefteaa in northern Sweden, Thulin trained as a ballet dancer and attended Stockholm’s Royal Dramatic Theatre.

She worked in stage productions with Bergman before moving to films, appearing in minor roles in the 1940s and 1950s.

It was her film work with Bergman that eventually brought her fame, including a Cannes Film Festival award for best actress in 1958 that she shared with fellow Swedes Bibi Andersson and Eva Dahlbeck for their roles in “Brink of Life.”

Asked if being in Bergman’s films was difficult, Thulin said no, using the 28-day shoot of “Brink of Life,” which was set in a maternity ward, as her example.

“I was always in bed,” said Thulin, who, despite her usually rather grim screen persona, often revealed a lively sense of humor. “I never put a foot on the floor.”

She also co-starred with Liv Ullmann and Andersson in the director’s harrowing “Cries and Whispers” (1971).

In 1956 she was cast with Robert Mitchum in “Foreign Intrigue,” her first American starring role, according to the All Movie Guide. But her brief time in Hollywood was marred by her role in 1962’s “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.” Before the film came out, her lines were dubbed by actress Angela Lansbury.

“It was the closest thing to being in a car factory making Cadillacs or Rolls Royces. Or Volkswagens,” Thulin told the Los Angeles Times in 1967, speaking of the film.

Thulin also appeared on Broadway and in television productions, including a 1961 remake of “Intermezzo” on NBC and in “Moses, The Lawgiver” on CBS in 1975.

After her first marriage to Claes Sylwander ended in divorce, she married Harry Schein, founder of the Swedish Film Institute, in 1958.

There was no information on survivors or funeral plans.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.