Christina Lindberg  

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

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Britt Christina Marinette Lindberg (born 6 December 1950, in Gothenburg, Sweden) is a Swedish actress, glamour model and journalist. Lindberg is one of Sweden's most famous centerfold and exploitation film stars.

Biography

Lindberg grew up in a working class home in Annedal, Gothenburg, together with her sister and three brothers. She studied Latin at school and planned to continue her studies in archeology.

Modelling career

During her high school years (she was around 18 years old) she started posing nude for men's magazines, such as FIB aktuellt and Lektyr, after having garnered some attention posing in bathing suits for newspapers. She later appeared in men's magazines such as Penthouse (UK), Playboy (U.S.), Lui (France) and Mayfair (UK). She was a Penthouse Pet in the June 1970 issue of Penthouse.

Film career

Lindberg has appeared or starred in 23 feature films, most of which have been erotica, exploitation or softcore pictures. Her first movie was an American production (Maid in Sweden), filmed in Sweden with a Swedish cast. She got her second role in Jan Halldoff's comedy Rötmånad which was released in 1970. The film was seen by over 250.000 Swedes and went on to become a commercial success. Her third film, Exponerad, was released with a lot of hoopla at the Cannes festival in 1971 and turned her into an international celebrity.

A long string of exploitation films followed, many of which were filmed in Germany and Japan. As part of the marketing campaign for Exponerad she also went on a publicity trip to Japan, which later resulted in an invitation to appear in Japanese exploitation films. In Japan she played a major supporting role in Norifumi Suzuki's Pink film classic Sex & Fury. In 1972 she starred as Madeleine in Bo A. Vibenius's controversial film Thriller - en grym film. Director Quentin Tarantino expressed his admiration for both the film and Lindberg's performance, and Madeleine later served as an inspiration for Uma Thurman's character in Tarantino's Kill Bill films. In Kill Bill he also borrowed elements from Sex & Fury. In the action-comedy spoof Sex, lögner & videovåld Lindberg made a brief cameo as Madeleine.

Lindberg did not like that nude pictures were getting more and more explicit and during the filming of Gerard Damiano's Flossie (AKA Natalie; not to be confused with a 1974 film of the same name, which was directed by Mac Ahlberg and starred Marie Forså) in West Germany, she left the set and returned home to Sweden. Damiano (who also directed the infamous Deep Throat) persuaded Lindberg to leave because he knew that it was going to be a hardcore film. For several years the German producer tried to bring her back in an attempt to complete the film. According to Videooze (No. 8, 1996), about 1.000 meters of film had been shot by Damiano. Production stopped and never resumed.

Theatrical Releases

On 6th October 2007 The Institute of Contemporary Arts in London screened a double bill of Anita and Exposed. Following the screening of Anita there was a Q&A with Christina Lindberg, she then introduced the second part of the double bill Exposed.

DVD Releases

In March 2008 Revelation Films released a DVD set called Christina Lindberg's Swedish Erotica Collection. This was a art house collection containing three of her films:

The Language Of Love: A modern, advanced film about sexual education and behaviour based on clinical research by famous American and Swedish doctors. The film deals with all kinds of problems connected with the sexual relationships of people, including the role of sex in society, the question of prejudices and taboos, sex in clothes and sex in art. Released without being cut, it featured music by Bjorn and Benny from ABBA and was best known as the ‘first date’ movie that Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) goes to see with Betsy (Cybill Shepherd) in ‘Taxi Driver’. On its original release it caused public demonstrations which resulted in it being banning in 36 countries.

Anita –- Swedish Nymphet: The story of a 16 year old nymphomaniac. Anita is 16 years-old, and while she has developed early physically, with the body of a mature woman, she is psychologically completely ruthless. During her troubles she meets Erik, a young psychology student. Gently and carefully he begins to dispel her psychological blocks. In the course of this treatment she reveals to him some of the shocking episodes of her previous experience.

Expose: Lena is torn between her innocent boyfriend and the older, more experienced, and sadistic sociopath Helge. To get away, Lena runs away and befriends a promiscuous and friendly couple, who she stays with in a summer cabin. Her boyfriend finds her there and takes her back to the city, where she is yet again torn between her boyfriend and the older man.

Journalist career

She made an attempt to enter the theater school Scenskolan in 1975 after having taken private lessons from Öllegård Wellton, but failed after having passed two out of three tests. She continued posing and writing for men's magazines while studying journalism at Poppius, and she eventually established herself as a journalist.

In 1972 she had fallen in love with Bo Sehlberg and she later started to work for his aviation magazine Flygrevyn. When her fiancé died in 2004, she became the owner and editor-in-chief of the magazine, which is the largest aviation magazine in Scandinavia.

Filmography

Note: The films have been listed in order of production, based on Lindberg's diary.