Anna Quirentia Nilsson (March 30, 1888 – February 11, 1974) was a Swedish-American actress who achieved success in American silent movies.
Nilsson was born in Ystad, Sweden in 1888. Her middle name Quirentia is derived from her date of birth, March 30, Saint Quirinius’ Day.
When she was 8 years old her father, Per Nilsson, got a job at the local sugar factory in Hasslarp, a small community outside Helsingborg in Sweden where she spent most of her school years. She did very well in school, graduating with highest marks. Due to her good grades, she was hired as a sales clerk in Halmstad on the Swedish west coast, unusual for a young woman from a worker’s family, but she had set her mind on going to the United States.
In 1905, she emigrated to the US through Ellis Island. In the U.S., she started working as a nursemaid and learned English quickly.
In 1907, Nilsson was named “Most beautiful woman in America.”
The cover artist Penrhyn Stanlaws chose her as one of his models, which led to her feature role in the Kalem Motion Picture Company’s 1911 film Molly Pitcher.
She stayed at the Kalem studio for several years, ranked behind its top star Alice Joyce, before branching out to other production companies.
Films of special note are Regeneration (1915) Seven Keys to Baldpate (1917), Soldiers of Fortune (1919), The Toll Gate and The Luck of the Irish (both 1920), and The Lotus Eater (1921).
In 1921, while on a rare vacation return to Sweden, she was asked to film Värmlänningarna, her only Swedish movie.
In the 1920s, she freelanced successfully for Paramount, First National and many other studios and reached a peak of popularity just before the advent of talkies.
In 1923, she was severely burned while filming a scene in which she drove a locomotive through a forest fire for Hearts Aflame;[5] she required a week to recuperate, but that did not impede her career. That year, she made nine movies,[6] including portraying “Cherry Malotte” in the second movie based upon Rex Beach’s The Spoilers, a role that would be played in later versions by Betty Compson (1930), Marlene Dietrich (1942), and Anne Baxter (1955).
In 1926, she was named Hollywood’s most popular woman. She welcomed royalty when the Swedish Crown Prince Gustav Adolf (later King Gustaf VI Adolf) and his wife Louise Mountbatten visited Hollywood. In 1928, she set a record for fan mail, some 30,000 letters per month, and in that year Joseph P. Kennedy brought her to his newly formed film company RKO Radio Pictures. The following year, as she was horse riding, she fell off the horse, was thrown against a stone wall and broke her hip. After a year of hard training, she was on her feet again.
In 1928, Anna Nilsson made her last film of the silent era, Blockade.
With the introduction of sound films, Nilsson’s career went into a sharp decline, although she continued to play small, often uncredited parts in films into the 1950s.
Between 1930 and 1950, she participated in 39 sound films in smaller roles.
She played the role of the Swedish immigrant mother of Loretta Young in The Farmer’s Daughter (1947).
Her best known performance in a sound film is her turn as herself, referred to as one of Swanson’s “waxworks” in Sunset Boulevard (1950), where she has one line.
Nilsson has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6150 Hollywood Boulevard for her contribution to motion pictures. She was the first Swedish-born actress to receive such an honor.
Nilsson was married to actor Guy Coombs from 1916 until 1917 and to Norwegian-American shoe merchant John Marshall Gunnerson from 1922 until 1925.
She died in Sun City, California on February 11, 1974, of heart failure.
Nilsson was a Lutheran.
Selected filmography
The Express Envelope (1911, Short) as Hazel
Molly Pitcher (1911, Short) as Molly Pitcher
The Flash in the Night (1911, Short) as Kate
The Darling of the C.S.A. (1912)
The Drummer Girl of Vicksburg (1912) as Rose Beecher
The Confederate Ironclad (1912, Short) as Elinor Adams – a Union Spy
Wolfe; Or, The Conquest of Quebec (1914) as Mignon Mars
The Hazards of Helen (1914, Serial) as Helen [Ch 18] ‘Night Operator Buxton’
Regeneration (1915) as Marie Deering
Barbara Frietchie (1915) as Sue Negly
The Scarlet Road (1916) as Betty Belgrave
The Supreme Sacrifice (1916) as Helen Chambers
Her Surrender (1916) as Rhoda Cortlandt
Infidelity (1917) as Elaine Bernard
The Moral Code (1917) as Jean Hyland
The Inevitable (1917) as Florence Grey
The Silent Master (1917) as Minor Role
Seven Keys to Baldpate (1917) as Mary Norton
Over There (1917) as Bettie Adams
Heart of the Sunset (1918) as Alaire Austin
The Trail to Yesterday (1918) as Sheila Langford
No Man’s Land (1918) as Katherine Gresham
In Judgement Of (1918) as Mary Manners
The Vanity Pool (1918) as Carol Harper
Ravished Armenia (1919) as Edith Graham
Venus in the East (1919) as Mrs. Pat Dyvenot
Cheating Cheaters (1919) as Grace Palmer
The Way of the Strong (1919) as Audrie Hendrie / Monica Norton
A Very Good Young Man (1919) as Viva Bacchus
The Love Burglar (1919) as Joan Gray
A Sporting Chance (1919) as Pamela Brent
Her Kingdom of Dreams (1919) as Carlotta Stanmore
Soldiers of Fortune (1919) as Alice Langham
The Luck of the Irish (1920) as Ruth Warren
The Thirteenth Commandment (1920) as Leila Kip
The Toll Gate (1920) as Mary Brown
The Figurehead (1920) as Mary Forbes
One Hour Before Dawn (1920) as Ellen Aldrich
The Fighting Chance (1920) as Sylvia Landis
In the Heart of a Fool (1920) as Margaret Muller
The Brute Master (1920) as Madeline Grey
What Women Will Do (1921) as Lily Gibbs
Without Limit (1921) as Ember Edwards
The Oath (1921) as Irene Lansing
Why Girls Leave Home (1921) as Anna Hedder
Värmlänningarna (1921, her only Swedish film) as Anna
The Lotus Eater (1921) as Madge Vance
Ten Nights in a Bar Room (1921)
Three Live Ghosts (1922) as Ivis
The Man from Home (1922) as Genevieve Granger-Simpson
Pink Gods (1922) as Lady Margot Cork
Hearts Aflame (1923) as Helen Foraker
The Isle of Lost Ships (1923) as Dorothy Fairfax
The Rustle of Silk (1923) as Lady Feo
The Spoilers (1923) as Cherry Malotte
Hollywood (1923) as Anna Q. Nilsson
Adam’s Rib (1923) as Mrs. Michael Ramsay
Ponjola (1923) as Lady Flavia Desmond
Thundering Dawn (1923) as Mary Rogers
Innocence (1923) as Fay Leslie
Enemies of Children (1923)
Half-A-Dollar-Bill (1924) as The Stranger – Mrs. Webber
Painted People (1924) as Leslie Carter
Flowing Gold (1924) as Allegheny Briskow
Between Friends (1924) as Jessica Drene
Broadway After Dark (1924) as Helen Tremaine
The Side Show of Life (1924) as Lady Auriol Dayne
The Fire Patrol (1924) as Mary Ferguson
The Breath of Scandal (1924)
Vanity’s Price (1924) as Vaana Du Maurier
Inez from Hollywood (1924) as Inez Laranetta
Hello, ‘Frisco (1924) as herself
If I Marry Again (1925) as Alicia Wingate
The Top of the World (1925) as Sylvia Ingleton
One Way Street (1925) as Lady Sylvia Hutton
The Talker (1925) as Kate Lennox
Winds of Chance (1925) as Countess Courteau
The Splendid Road (1925) as Sandra De Hault
Too Much Money (1926) as Annabel Broadley
Her Second Chance (1926) as Mrs. Constance Lee / Caroline Logan
The Greater Glory (1926) as Fanny
Miss Nobody (1926) as Barbara Brown
Midnight Lovers (1926) as Diana Fothergill
The Masked Woman (1927) as Diane Delatour
Easy Pickings (1927) as Mary Ryan
Babe Comes Home (1927) (with Babe Ruth) as Vernie
Lonesome Ladies (1927) as Polly Fosdick
The Thirteenth Juror (1927) as Helen Marsden
Sorrell and Son (1927) as Dora Sorrell
The Whip (1928) as Iris d’Aquila
Blockade (1928) as Bess
Sound Films
The World Changes (1933) as Mrs. Peterson
School for Girls (1934) as Dr. Anne Galvin
The Little Minister (1934) as Villager (uncredited)
Wanderer of the Wasteland (1935) as Mrs. Virey
Paradise for Three (1938) as First Bridge Player (uncredited)
Prison Farm (1938) as Matron Ames
The Trial of Mary Dugan (1941) as Juror (uncredited)
The People vs. Dr. Kildare (1941) as Juror Next to Foreman (uncredited)
They Died with Their Boots On (1941) as Mrs. Taipe (uncredited)
Girls’ Town (1942) as Mother Lorraine
The Great Man’s Lady (1942) as Paula Wales (uncredited)
I Live on Danger (1942) as Mrs. Sherman
Crossroads (1942) as Madame Deval (uncredited)
Headin’ for God’s Country (1943) as Mrs. Nilsson
Cry ‘Havoc’ (1943) as Nurse (uncredited)
The Valley of Decision (1945) as Mrs. Scott’s Nurse (uncredited)
The Sailor Takes a Wife (1945) as Switchboard Operator (uncredited)
The Secret Heart (1946) as Dr. Rossiger’s Secretary (uncredited)
The Farmer’s Daughter (1947) as Mrs. Holstrom
Cynthia (1947) as Miss Brady
It Had to Be You (1947) as Saleslady (uncredited)
Fighting Father Dunne (1948) as Mrs. Olaf Knudson
The Boy with Green Hair (1948) as Townswoman (uncredited)
Every Girl Should Be Married (1948) as Saleslady
In the Good Old Summertime (1949) as Woman with Harp (uncredited)
Adam’s Rib (1949) as Mrs. Poynter (uncredited)
Malaya (1949) as Secretary (uncredited)
The Big Hangover (1950) as Helen Lang (uncredited)
Sunset Boulevard (1950) as herself
Grounds for Marriage (1951) as Dowager at Friday Club (uncredited)
Show Boat (1951) as Seamstress (uncredited)
The Law and the Lady (1951) as Mrs. Scholmm (uncredited)
An American in Paris (1951) as Kay Jansen (uncredited)
The Unknown Man (1951) as Cocktail Party Guest (uncredited)
Fearless Fagan (1952) as Abby’s Maid (uncredited)
The Great Diamond Robbery (1954) as Nurse (uncredited)
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954) as Mrs. Elcott (uncredited)
Books:
Wollstein, Hans J. Strangers in Hollywood: the history of Scandinavian actors in American films from 1910 to World War II (Scarecrow Press. 1994)
