Woman; 123; Viveca Lindfors

An in-depth exploration of the world of women today with help. Good evening. And welcome to woman. My guest this evening is a Broadway actress. The winner of The New York Drama League Award a grandmother a divorcee a film actress the winner of the Berlin Film Festival Award. Mother of three and a Capricorn born in Sweden. She is very vocal in Florida. Welcome to woman there with us. Thank you. I'm a half a degree. I left out some 50 movies 50 bro yeah. And various other things that you've done well if you if you had to put everything in you we would have to be here for like 50 years right. Oh yeah. Let's talk about what you're doing now. I think no mentor in New York doing your own one woman show called I am a woman. Yes actually we try to stay away from the title. I have one woman show and I'm haunted by there's no way to get away from that everybody uses that word. Because somehow it is not something that

interests people somehow. So we try to stay busy. We keep saying it's a play about one woman and many women or a journey or a search and we avoid the one woman but maybe that's a mistake maybe I just said that's it so one woman shows it to be different one woman show. From what you've seen before when women were freaks had to be freaks in order to do anything to let the evolution of I am a woman then. You be in the evening. Why why did you do it to begin with. When I think to begin with which is about four or five years ago that's almost how long I've been at it. And that's the struggle is still on you know to fight for it all the time. I think when I started it was a purely. You know when I saw a commercial choice I mean I was to go around reading Bridge and the agency that I worked with said wouldn't couldn't you put together another evening and I kept thinking of things like Mark Twain and things like that. But finding a female rock Twain and I couldn't think of anyone I said was There is

no woman writer that I could do a whole evening but somebody was already doing Colette. So I said why don't I just put together things about being a woman so I said How would you like the title I'm a woman they said oh that's marvelous. It's such a corner title but it really works. You know what else could you really say in those days I was. I was very unaware of the movement. And I even hate to admit this but I was even like so many other women. Feeling. Embarrassed about being just like saying oh neat suits you know what I mean. I want to be it was men that kind of thing. Right. So I started to work on the show about myself and then went to a friend of mine a director Paul Auster and I said Paul I want to keep working on this in total about myself is too isolated.

How would you live to work with me on it. Maybe now I might have gone to a woman but I just didn't know it home and that I thought I could go to because people have said they oh you choose a man. When I choose a human being I mean I'm not going to discriminate. So he was very funny. He said I would just be first read what I'd put together as that I would love to do it because I didn't want to get rid of all my hang ups of that white women and he said in an interview not too long ago that this involvement of this evening has in a way for the first time I have women friends business interest. You know so we started to work and he said you know we've got to we've got to do a lot of we must read everything that goes on today. So as I started to read and it went click it really went click I was flabbergasted that's what I was liberated. I've had analysis for many many years. However

with a very flawed an analyst so I thought that that saying was taken care of and I realized it really was so to assess a tremendous amount of thought. So being a woman about the conditioning that I had submitted myself to and. Still suffer from and that I wasn't really liberated at all before we get into that you know let's backtrack and talk about exactly what the show is. But the show is a search. The show is a journey. It is a journey of a woman and many women. Me you anybody who. At a certain point in her life has to say who am I. And what am I doing with my life. Right. That's not so different from what perhaps a man feels too. But in the particulars in this particular time when this threat of. Our own need for identification with ourselves right. Which is now open up in the sense that the choices are possible. So now we have to really

know who we are so we don't get lost right. So I imagine that most women feel the threat of the same kind of a freedom that's possible. The choice that's possible and or threatened and afraid to lose what we know is. Being a woman right. So that. The evening is really a journey of women looking back to see. What I want to hold on to what I did at it if you can totally fulfill it. And where were where was the neurosis that stopped me and what caused it and what can I do about it. And I go to understand it and I know I want to be this they want to do all those things and I still want to hold on to what I knew in the beginning made me feel so marvelous. Right. But what do they all have in common they all have in common I think. I think.

I think you know that I think there's you know I mean come on. That they want a man. That they want a connection with a deep intimate connection with another human being. What they find out all of them is that their neurosis comes from lack of foresight and that in other areas and that therefore the relationship with a man becomes a tower a prison. Instead of a flight of fulfillment. I mean that when you first think you begin a relationship with a man it seems like the world opens up right. And instead it seems like so many women the world closes down right. So it is for the prison it is with a fulfillment. And I think they all have that in common although some of the women do not understand it right. So I'm showing various women in various moments in their lives and therefore telling kind of a story line of a woman in search being told through different characters lives. Who are some of the women. The evening is in the way framed. By the

spirit of. And Frank age 14. And I was in age seven to 72 Lillian Hellman age 77 didn't call it. So that you know. The spirit of Annie. Which is matching the spirit of the two older women so that you know in a way we don't have to lose it. We can feel like Annie. And we can. Yet. Be good and ises. And so we ended with a nice name. But it is learned. And I learned and. I have learned that. I see I have moments of. What I see when I'm out of the tunnel. I have none that I have been in a ton a lot as a woman. Knowing that the light is that and I want to be out there you know being in contact with the world. Sharing the world with myself. Being part of the

world. Being part of forming the world and. Being part of the responsibility for creating a world that I want to live in. I know now I know know that that is what I have to do. And in a way the evening. Is almost a first step towards that I had many. Ambitious. Efforts in that direction before but I always step back. Always step I say I can't do it and that has to do it and then if you got messed up I got angry at the man but this time I've stayed in with it all the time and it's on point of the growth of the show constantly. I love that I got to be right in there and as a matter of fact I feel better but I'm not protected. And whenever anybody protects me I go crazy. It's like I don't have enough trust to be protected I must be right in there I must do it must be part of it I must be active. And I think that that is. I mean lurch

to austerity positions especially if I'm powerless. I made powers a manipulated so that I am powerless and somebody takes over and this and this I really trust that person. I want to have it. And if I really trust that person he usually trust me and we do it together. And I must say that my relationship with Paul who with whom I wrote and he directed it. The trust is totally totally totally and we treat each other's totally equal human beings. There is absolutely no. Compromise between us i. I would say that I have conflicts about this thing that we're talking about. It doesn't matter whether it's a man or a woman. If it's a woman I had the same come you know so is the whole money plaiting saying be the weaker one that I really am very very allergic to. Do people think that because you've been an actress for a long time that you've been liberated for a long time. Yes.

This is why you you know you always made your living you've traveled all over the Virgin been married Millett times etc. etc. etc. and. Actually. While I was working on this. My marriage broke up. And it was a marriage of 18 years and it was in many many many ways a very good promising marriage. It was a. Terrible blow to me that it broke up. I mean just I was just shattered and. In a way I was lucky in the sense that it choose a very young woman and I set myself at least it's his problem it's his problem because he's copping out of facing old age with me and he sees himself in me yet he used to quote this thing where I read one day said to me you know. I'm reading something in a New York Times which really is funny he said. I don't mind being a grandfather but I don't like to be married to a grandmother. And I thought ha extraordinary that's really I think what happened it's like. I think in a marriage

often or in an intimate relationship the other person becomes you. And if there's something in you that you don't like and you see that you see yourself in that other person it is trouble right. I can't run away from either yourself or yourself in the other person. So many are the fact that he. Abandoned me as I felt. I felt terribly abandoned. I realize that my God I have very little substance to stand on my own. You know though even know I was famous this that and yet I felt totally lost totally abandoned and. Petrified. And I can imagine how other women my age I'm over 50 feels at the moment life that I feel. How am I going to find another partner. How will I have any she to start another relationship at this stage of my life and I just felt it was.

I was his picture for I really do feel marriage is still viable for you I mean is that something you still want. That kind of thing again. No. In this sense I live. A deep relationship. And in a way the city that is really in a relationship. With a man. In it and I want to depend upon the flow that that relationship gives me I don't want to depend on that person. I don't want anybody to depend upon me but I do want to depend upon the flow. That happens between two people. I am. I think. I'm 97 percent sure I am a one man woman. I like. That kind of relationship with one man. Oh. I like to have a. Totally fulfilling life in many many other areas and I don't want anything to stop me from that. If that relationship stops me from fulfilling my seven Annas

I can't have it must have been held back in the office but I think I've done it to myself and I think my own gives me and gives of. Sinking. A woman or to be doing this and that. I mean I think I had a very old fashioned idea of what it was to be a woman. Do you think most women feel that way already and it's changing. The thing most women do feel and I think it's changing but I think the difficulty in changing here and also here is enormous I think enormous. Now. I'm always happy when I. Am happy to be. And happy to be doing the show at this time. Right. That's just unlucky. To figure a lucky thing that I started to work on it because I was out of a need of my own that it happened to become a need of the world at the same time as one of those lucky things. And it's very encouraging to me to meet younger women that are not as. Screwed up as I am who has the pact and has not been going on for so long.

You get to talk to a lot of women don't you after your show you have a symposium. What are some of the things they say to you. Well the first question they all ask is. How did you. How did you do this. And it is as if women I think have an enormous need. To. Learn and understand. The slowness. Of. Getting a piece of work together. We are I think inclined to give up quickly because really we have not been. Trained or we haven't been looked upon as people that should accomplish something. So it's a whole new thing for us to accomplish. We were told to accomplish you know having a baby cleaning the house etc. but actually cleaning and keeping up a home is not as so different from putting together a show. It's the same thing at it every day you know. What a clean up one corner then you have to clean up another and you have to go back and clean. It's the same thing. So we women should feel quite capable because we've been very capable all

our lives and there's no reason that we can't take this same capability handing the haves and the children out into other areas of life where we want to go to as a matter of fact I think that we have a kind of a systematic. More slower more real more feet on the earth you know we're not so involved in machines we've had to deal with the kids and all kinds of emergency situations flexibilities situations women. Are dealing with that much more. I think we should you know we're at this point now when it's all open for us and we're ready to go in and deal in a man's world. We ought to not to be saw apologetic for the kind of work we have been doing we have done quite a lot of work and we should really take that strength and that capability into a man's world because I think their world is you know I mean I think they're pretty screwed up in many ways you know I get into the business world and I think that my God they're less organized than I am and I'm an actress. You know I'm an artist

so I don't think we have to apologize so much for what we have been doing when somebody says I'm just a housewife. I said my God. That a man tic out of a house is a very difficult thing to do. It takes nerve it takes talent it takes all kinds of stuff. Yes I don't believe anyone should apologize for being a house when I never had. That's right it's a job. So it's the future. But what was your question. What are the questions that women ask for that so that's one question they ask. And I tell them how long it took me and that it probably came out of a kind of frustration so that I was able to use my own frustration in a creative way. And I think that's another important thing for us to learn right. That we can use what we call a negative sense of our weaknesses and by strengthening it because that for the work that we're doing I suppose that's what you've been doing. In a way. Yes I think so much. You made a statement once about

actresses today. Yes they said very few actresses are not neurotic. Would you do you just deny them to sell more stuff. I would say. That would say that if you women are not in Iraq. Think women and Iran. Oh yes do explain that. Yeah I know it sounds like a put on and I don't mean it that way at all. I think it is good for us at this moment. To realize that we are in a lot of why we are an erotic in that we got to get rid of it. You know. I think it's a. It's a dangerous defense mechanism so absolutely fine. I think women on Iran can. Can you be more specific in ways. Well I. I think that. And we are just being left out right. In the sense the same way as the negro in a way.

Who. They want and then you know for. Quite some time. Have been in a safe position. Right. You didn't have to be responsible for anything. It was his doing it the master's doing it. I can sit back and be very wise right now. I think that also creates a kind of a narrow system when you particularly when you have to go out and say I'm going to be those people that I have criticized now I have to do it right. Then you have to live for yourself. Which is healthy. I think their lives through another person is very neurotic. And I think that women have done that. Better than as a mother's sentence in my evening. Where she says. Until all women learn. To share and take on the responsibility for the backing of the world instead of being a burden themselves. They will continue to be destructive to their husbands to their children

and to the south. And I suppose that because of you have absolutely been like we've been kept like children or like Nora Right. We've been in A Doll's House. When you are grown up that that's it. That's totally unreal situation and it's bound to make you know ironic. The doll's house by the way is really a brilliant brilliant play. And I'm using a tiny piece from there. Are women treated very badly in theatre. Do you feel you've been discriminated against. Yes. Have you always felt that way. Once again distorted. I think that I. Have perhaps a tendency to. Play the martyr. And I've had to fight that a lot. You know. And I've been in analysis and. I hate to be the victim but I think I play the role of the victim right. So you could say we have allowed ourselves to be discriminated against. Well the power in the theater in the movies

is held by men. And he of course has. Put the woman in to the kind of a situation where he I don't mean this again in a mean way because men are is conditioned as we are. Right. There I was blindfolded about many things is real and have been. There was an interesting thing that happened. When I started out as an actress. I followed. I mean people like that are Garbo like Catherine happened like the Katharine Hepburn was really your pet actress of mine. And she's different she says she was very independent yes. She is what I think. But if her dad again talks about those few exceptional women that did learn to compete. Not as women but as human beings have paid a price and did in a sense become mutations and these mutations suffered and surmounted their own identity

crisis. And in a way if you think of Catherine and as she is a total exception. Some plays you have a sense of a price has been paid. Right. Bette Davis and other women that didn't want to pay that prize. Have left. Ireland. So that's called bad political. You know what happened to them. What happened to them at the age of 35. They had their glorious period. And as my vet the whole film industry was kind of mobbers when films were made about marvelous women strong women most of the time they were just. And just wives. And they are. Sometimes actresses. Do you take being called aggressive. I don't like to be called aggressive. I prefer the word act. Do you dislike aggressive because it's a male term. No I don't say so I just don't like. Feeling aggressive I think.

And I to feel active. I like to. And I like to act. I mean move. I like to be able to if I feel something I want to act on it if I feel something at this I don't want to have. I admire myself when I said I want to have it and that's that very hard. If that's called aggressive then I like to be aggressive but I don't think is being aggressive I don't think of the word aggressive and I think of the word aggressive. More as an unfair thing. I could be wrong. I don't know what is a word anyhow. But I was going to ask you if you thought women you know working in theatre have to be that. Women in theatre have mostly played this kind of game under the table. You know I mean playing the damned blonde right and then going on stage and really taking over. So it's been a totally schizo phrenic situation. Marilyn Monroe is the example of it. This brilliant

brilliant really brilliant mind who had to play the damn sexy blonde. And since she had very little knowledge about how brilliant she was. I think she knew it but she couldn't. I think she knew it very much. I think she knew it but she couldn't act upon it. Because of condition and because of what they did to her. I mean they did. It. Incredible things to her. That's another quote She was way ahead of time I'd like to ask you about before we run out of time. And you said at one point that it wasn't until you were 45. Before you got. A little bit of wisdom concerning life. Do you want to explain that or expand on that a little bit. You know although I want to say though that that doesn't necessarily mean that generally speaking people who get to that point when they're 45 I think that depends upon you know of the kind of a time you're living in when I think of my mother at 45 in my 745 or my grandmother to 45. Who knows what.

And where they were at. And what I was at it fortified. It's an interesting thing that's been happening to me lately is that I'm beginning to have a sense of perspective. I really have a certain amount of years to look back at. And that I think gives you a certain amount of wisdom. Welcome. I was very much the code word so that. You don't feel if you're quiet. You feel you're in the middle of it but you can understand things because you have a sense of perspective. So really you don't have any very strong fears about age. Never mind coming on television saying I'm 15 years yeah. I have no fears about age. I only have one. Yeah I am really afraid of being afraid. That's to me I'm afraid. And that still had just. Since your marriage is broken up does it help in more detail.

No. I think. The time that has passed since my marriage broke. Up has been such an incredibly. A. Construct of time in spite of the unbearable agony that it caused. But I think that the fact that I survived it and then realized you know I had to. Look for me somehow and learn how to stand on my own feet. That was a lesson that a lot of young people learn early they say look I want to know that I can be by myself before I can team up with somebody. So I think is a very terrific thing. So I would say that I'm getting less afraid. And less afraid of age too. I don't think I'm afraid of age at all. Did you used to be. Yeah. I think so I think when I was about 40 45 I think I would.

Panic I don't think so much afraid of age as I felt. What age. That age was pointing out to me. Jesus Christ you haven't done it you know what's the matter with you. The Vicar we're out of time. I'm. Sorry we could go on forever. And I thank you for it was an interesting good night to say relaxed we are.