Maria Helena "Mimi" Pollak (9 April 1903 – 11 August 1999) was a Swedish actress and theatre director.
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Biography
Pollak was born in Karlstad, Värmland, to Austrian-Jewish parents and was trained in the performing arts at the prestigious Royal Dramatic Training Academy in Stockholm from 1922 to 1924.
Pollak worked in the 1920s and 1930s as a film actress, and as a stage actress, mainly at the Blanche Theatre in Stockholm and at the Helsingborg City Theatre. She returned as an actress to the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm in 1942.
In 1948, Pollak became the first contracted female director at the Royal Dramatic Theatre with the production of Jean Genet's Jungfruleken (Les Bonnes/The Maids), starring Anita Björk and Maj-Britt Nilsson in the leads. Pollak became a successful director at the Royal Dramatic Theatre and staged altogether 60 plays at the national stage over the years.
After her 1922 debut in the film Amatörfilmen (The Amateur Film), she appeared in about 30 film and TV productions. Notable film roles are her supporting parts in Schamyl Bauman's film comedy Skolka skolan (Skip School, 1949), in Vilgot Sjöman's Klänningen (The Dress, 1964), as the piano teacher in Ingmar Bergman's Höstsonaten (Autumn Sonata, 1978) starring Ingrid Bergman, in Ingenjör Andrées luftfärd (Flight of the Eagle, 1982) starring Max von Sydow and directed by Jan Troell, and in the popular Swedish TV mystery Agnes Cecilia – en sällsam historia (Agnes Cecilia — A Strange Story, 1991) adapted from the successful books by Maria Gripe.
