Trained as a dancer, Harriet Andersson worked her way up from the chorus in Swedish musical revues to supporting parts in films. Impressed by her work in a previous picture, director Ingmar Bergman fashioned a vehicle specifically tailored to Harriet's talents, Summer With Monika (1953). Exuding an earthy, sexually insatiable screen image, Harriet gained international fame with her next Bergman project, Sawdust and Tinsel (1953), in which her slatternly character committed many of her worst indiscretions in the nude.
Never confined to any one characterization, Harriet proved to be one of the most versatile members of the Bergman stock company: some of her finest work can be seen in Through a Glass Darkly (1961), and, as the dying Agnes, in Cries and Whispers (1973). She remained with Bergman all the way up to his last theatrical feature, Fanny and Alexander (1982), in which she was cast as Justina. Harriet Andersson won a Venice Film Festival award for one of her few non-Bergman projects, To Love (1964), directed by her husband Jorn Donnor. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide. 