Scandinavian Film Stars: Natassia Malthe

My blog is mostly about actors from the old Hollywood studio days but from time to time I'll have a surprise entry. Today I'd like to highlight the beautiful Norwegian actress Natassia Malthe whose also been credited under the names, Natasha Malthe and Lina Teal.

This gorgeous Nordic brunette eats lutefisk and states Kate Winslet inspires her. She was born in the late 1970s in Oslo. She studied ballet at the Royal Winnepeg Ballet, Norwegian Opera house and the Goh Ballet Academy.

She is so breathtaking that she has modelled including Maxim magazine which may be hindering her from being taken seriously as an actress. Her major breakthrough was in the Jennifer Garner vechicle Elektra where they locked lips in a kissing scene. Some of her other films include Lake Placid, 40 Days and 40 Nights, and A Guy Thing. While not a household name, I wish her luck in her career. She is beautiful, sexy, talented, and Norwegian.

Scandinavian Film Stars: Vera Zorina

Vera Zorina is another Norwegian who studied ballet but she was a serious dancer and choreographer who showcased her talents in a few Hollywood films. Before Hollywood she joined the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo where she changed her name to Zorina from her birthname of Eva Brigitta Hartwig.

She signed with Samuel Goldwyn making her official film debut in the musical Goldwyn Follies starring Adolph Menjou and the Ritz Brothers. That same year she married George Balanchine. She continued making films co-starring with the likes of Bob Hope, George Raft, Lucille Ball, Peter Lorre, and Alan Hale. After her divorce from Balanchine, she married the head of Colombia Records, Goddard Lieberson.

In the 1970s, she was appointed director of the Norwegian Opera. Although born in Berlin, Zorina's mother was Norwegian and Zorina too identified Norwegian. A woman after my own heart.

Scandinavian Stars: Greta Nissen

I have a special place in my heart for Greta Nissen after creating a database for her collection held at the Emigrant Museum near Hamar, Norway. It's a small collection consisting of photographs, her painting and drawings, amusing letters from her WWII soldier brother, and other miscellaneous items.

Nissen is most famous in Hollywood for a role she hardly seen. She starred in the silent version of Howard Hughes film, Hell's Angels. When talkies came, Hughes reshot the film using then-unknown Jean Harlow.

Like Sonja Henie, she too studied ballet reportedly having performed for Norway's Queen Maud at age 6.

She made her American film debut in 1925. Her silent films were usually successful. She starred with Adolph Menjou and worked with director Raoul Walsh. Hell's Angel's could have made her a bigger star but with the advent of sound, her Norwegian accent was considered a liablity.

Greta would begin studying English to improve her accent. She made talkies and the quick British films but never found that breakthrough role. Nevertheless she continued to have fans from all over the States, Philippines, Brazil, Argentina, Britain, and Norway, her birth country.

After her retirement, she lived with her industrialist husband in California until her death.

Scandinavian Film Stars: Sonja Henie

As a young girl, I learned about Sonja Henie from a book titled "Whatever Became Of......? In honor of her I pretended some of my stuffed animals were Norwegian.

Brown-eyed Sonja Henie was born in Kristiania (Oslo) Norway in 1912. She was a 3-time Olympic figure skating champion (1928, 1932, and 1936). Yet what endeared me to her is that she was also a movie actress. My initiation into old Hollywood movies began with Betty Grable and Alice Faye musicals. Sonja's figure skating films were somewhat similiar to those musicals albeit skating. Even her co-stars were similiar to Grable's and Faye's eg. Tyrone Power, John Payne, Don Amerche, and Cesear Romero.

Henie had studied ballet. She helped popularize figure skating in part by her showmanship combining dance, leaps and costumes which is standard in today's figures skating whereas it previously was a mundane sport.

Henie was a diminutive woman at only 5'3' but a sharp businesswoman. Top Hollywood executives wanted to sign her but her asking price of $75,000 was deemed outrageous at the time.

She was eventually signed by Fox after renting an ice rink, producing and starring in her own Hollywood Ice Revue which sold out to standing-room-only crowds.

Her films showcased her skating talents. Naturally they were often at winter lodges. Henie began to demand contract revisions making her the highest paid star in Hollywood. After World War II, her popularity waned and she concentrated on ice revues. She became one of the wealthiest women in the world.

Sonja Henie founded the Henie-Onstad Centre in Norway. The collection includes artwork by Picasso, Matisse, Leger, Ernst, Miro, and Klee along with Sonja's skating trophies and photographs. It also includes prizes won by Sonja skiing, tennis, motor racing competitions.