Inga Swenson is DEAD TO ME!!

Awwww. Lizzie, is my blue suit pressed?

Perfect teef. Why don't they make 'em like that anymore?

Aww I loved her on both shows, RIP. Wow, time goes so fast.

Kraut definitely wanted Benson's bbc.

Baker Street

She was absolutely brilliant on Soap. Corinne, Corinne, Corinne.

She was Helen Keller’s mother in The Miracle Worker

Beautiful singing voice as Lizzie in 110 in the Shade

Hoss's mother on Bonanza.

Nooooo! Who gets the iconic wig!!!

r6 Has Diana Canova released a statement?!

James Grissom posted her passing on Instagram earlier this week. I googled but couldn't find anything.....until now.

I posted an ode to her (much copied...are you listening, Miss. Rebecca Balding?!) hairstyle at some point on this site during the last three years...

R13 She's not listening: Balding died on July 18, 2022, at the age of 73, after having suffered from ovarian cancer.

New Faces

For me she is in the "Always annoying as fuck" actresses of the 70s-80s category, along with Christina Pickles, Nancy Dussault, Barrie Youngfellow, and Linda Kelsey. If I see any one of them, I switch the channel.

Male versions: Dennis Boutsikaris, Robert Walden, Tony Musante, and John Shea.

But RIP, Ma'am.

Baker Street

Wow, I always assumed she was younger than Polly Holliday. Holly seemed younger to me than Lily, maybe because she was sleeping around and not setting the kitchen on fire. RIP

I loved her as Kraus.

(though her German accent was almost as terrible as any of Julianne Moore's attempts at a British one)

R17 must've hated "Lou Grant."

Isn't that Toni Tenille?

She always seemed like she would have been an excellent dominatrix.

It was a short jump from Krause to Annie Lennox’s “Sweet Dreams”.

She had the Toni Tennille/Bonnie Franklin haircut.

R17 EXCUSE me?

We'll never forget you, Mom!

What was on her iPod?

Aw, how sad. Loved her on "Benson." RIP.

Nice obit in THR:

[quote]The statuesque Swenson and Guillaume worked alongside each other inside the governor’s mansion for seven seasons (1979-86), and she received Emmy noms in 1980, ’82 and ’85 for her work. A running gag had Benson insulting Gretchen under his breath, only to have her bellow, “I hear you!”

She was one of the pupils of the great acting teacher Alvina Krause at Northwestern. Krause recalled that, during a performance at Krause’s summer theatre at Eagles Mere in Bloomsburg, Pa, the power went out one night, and, while tech was restoring it, Swenson, then a young woman, came out and sang “Molly Malone” to keep the audience engaged. That, Krause, was the sign of a true actress, who could rise to the occasion and hold an audience. (And Jrause rarely had a good word to say about anyone.)

She rocked !! I felt she was a good person as a kid . I loved her exuberance. RIP

Great interview she did when she was well into her 80s. She's articulate and funny, both self-deprecating and justly proud of her good performances and reviews.

On Shelley Winters: "The mouth started and it never stopped!"

"Maggie Smith has never done anything wrong, as far as I can tell. She was just so much fun to be with."

"Fritz Weaver was the best. He was my favorite actor. He was so dear. Working with Fritz was the highlight of my life."

She mentions DL fave The Kenley Players too.

RIP

She was limited, much like her sister Rose.

[quote]Inga Swenson as Ingrid Swenson in 70s TV-show SOAP

Wow...what a stretch!

I thought it was Ingrid Svenson.

Giving off some Jane Lynch vibes in OP's picture.

Sad>>>”Another son, James, died at age 26 in a motorcycle accident in 1987.”

Threads like this are why DL is worth the mucky parts. Benson was on all the time as I was a small child, and so was she.

Great link r1. One of the comments below the clip explained why she shut out for a Tony for her performance in “110 in the Shade”:

[quote]Not only Inga for 110 in the Shade but also Barbara Cook for She Loves me and Tammy Grimes for High Spirits who weren't even nominated for a Tony that year— couldn't do anything because of Channing in Hello Dolly and Streisand in Funny Girl.

[quote]Both Inga and Bea Lillie for High Spirits were nominated but as Barbara Cook said nobody could compete with the great orchestral musical named Hello Dolly.

[quote]Both 110 in the Shade and She Loves Me were chamber musicals with few performers and human stories. Hello Dolly and Funny Girl were great spectacles full of dances, roles, and a chorus around a star.

Walter Kerr writing in 1977 about singers using body microphones:

"Over the years I have heard of only one singing actress principled enough, and stubborn enough, to refuse to wear a body‐mike when so instructed. Her name was Inga Swenson and she put her first starring role in a Broadway musical on the line rather than give in to a producer's orders to hook her up. She seems to have had no successors. It's not the name of the game. Where amplification is concerned, it's onward and upward and can't-we-computerize-it-all? spreads like rice, you know. Once started, no turning it back."

Swenson said David Merrick, who produced "110 in the Shade" told her she had to use a body mike during Boston previews, and she refused, saying she'd quit rather than wear a mike.

R17 is a bitch to the dead

[quote]She was Helen Keller’s mother in The Miracle Worker

What?

Was she a lesbian?

Played the mousy wife of Senator Brig Anderson in Advise And Consent, in the early 60s. Directed by Otto Preminger. Senator Anderson had a gay past while in WWII and someone was threatening to blackmail him over a Senate confirmation hearing for Secretary Of State (Henry Fonda). I think it was the first mainstream Hollywood movie to have a gay bar scene and things like that.

*Don Murray played the senator.

R37 Swenson, née Rabinowitz.

R22, oh, Lawd how I did.

I wanted Lou Grant inside me quite deeply.

She was very funny on both "Soap" and "Benson," even despite that awful Toni Tenille mushroom haircut.

She had a great voice.