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Nils Asther

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Nils Asther
Asther in 1928 by J. Willis Sayre
Born
Nils Anton Alfhild Asther

(1897-01-17)17 January 1897
Copenhagen, Denmark
Died19 October 1981(1981-10-19) (aged 84)
Stockholm, Sweden
NationalitySwedish
Occupation(s)Actor, painter
Years active1916–1963
Spouse
​
​
(m. 1930; div. 1932)​
Children1

Nils Anton Alfhild Asther (17 January 1897 – 19 October 1981)[1] was a Swedish actor active in Hollywood from 1926 to the mid-1950s, known as "the male Greta Garbo". Between 1916 and 1963, he appeared in over seventy feature films, sixteen of which were produced in the silent era. He is mainly remembered today for two silent films, The Single Standard and Wild Orchids, which he made with fellow Swede Greta Garbo, and his portrayal of the title character in the controversial pre-Code Frank Capra film, The Bitter Tea of General Yen.

Biography

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Born Nils Anton Alfhild Asther, he was the son of Swedish nationals Anton Andersson Asther (born February 21, 1865, Caroli, Malmö) and Hildegard Augusta Åkerlund (born November 3, 1869, in Södra Sallerup, Malmöhus County). Although Asther had promised Åkerlund marriage, she was unwed on giving birth to Nils in the Sankt Matthæus Parish of the Copenhagen borough of Vesterbro where she very briefly stayed. Thus, due to the marriage already being promised, Nils was technically not illegitimate; when his parents married on May 29, 1898, it was noted Anton officially acknowledged the boy as his. [citation needed]

He spent his first year as a foster child in Hyllie, Sweden with saddlemaker Rasmus Hellström and wife Emilia Kristina Möller. He was christened there on February 26, 1897, before being returned to his biological parents who then wed in Malmö.[citation needed]

His older half-brother, Gunnar Anton Asther (born March 4, 1892, in Caroli, Malmö) was his father's child from a previous marriage to Anna Paulina Olander, who died in July 1895.[citation needed]

Asther by Alexander Binder in 1925

As a young man, Asther moved to Stockholm, where he received acting lessons from Augusta Lindberg. It was through Lindberg that Asther received his first theatrical engagement at Lorensbergsteatern in Gothenburg, and in 1916 Mauritz Stiller cast him in The Wings (Swedish: Vingarna), a 1916 gay-themed Swedish silent film directed by Mauritz Stiller, based on Herman Bang's 1902 novel Mikaël. In Copenhagen, actor Aage Hertel of the Royal Danish Theatre took Asther under his wing. This soon led to a number of film roles in Sweden, Denmark and Germany between 1918 and 1926.

Hollywood

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In 1927, Asther left for Hollywood, where his first film was Topsy and Eva. By 1928 his good looks had made him into a leading man, playing opposite such stars as Pola Negri, Marion Davies and Joan Crawford. He grew a thin mustache which amplified his suave appearance. One of his most popular films was Our Dancing Daughters, starring Joan Crawford, Johnny Mack Brown, Anita Page, and Dorothy Sebastian. Asther was cast opposite Greta Garbo in Wild Orchids as the tempting Javanese Prince De Gace. With the arrival of sound in movies, Asther took diction and voice lessons to minimize his accent, and was generally cast in roles where an accent was not a problem, such as the Chinese General Yen in The Bitter Tea of General Yen.[1]

Career decline

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Between 1935 and 1940, Asther was forced to work in England after an alleged breach of contract led to a studio-based blacklist.[2] Asther made six films there. He returned to Hollywood in 1940, and although he made another 19 films up until 1949, his career was never the same, and he appeared mostly in small supporting roles. In the early 1950s, Asther tried to restart his career in television, but managed only to secure roles in a few episodes of minor TV series.[1] In 1958,[3][4] he returned to Sweden, almost destitute. There, he managed to get an engagement with a local theater and had four film roles before finally giving up on acting in 1963 and devoting his time to painting.[1]

Homosexuality

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Asther was a homosexual in a time when it was a dangerous social stigma, both personally and professionally. He grew up in a deeply religious Lutheran home, believing homosexuality was a sin as society viewed homosexuality as a disease. In Sweden, it was called "unnatural fornication". While sexual same-sex relations between adults were legalized in 1944, the medical classification of homosexuality as a mental disorder continued until 1979.[5]

The theatrical community and the film industry of the 1920s accepted gay actors with little reservation, always provided they remain discreet about their sexual orientation and there was no public suggestion of impropriety.[6] Asther was closeted, and proposed marriage to Greta Garbo to hide his true sexual orientation. Asther and Garbo had known each other in Sweden, and finding themselves relatively new to a foreign land, they spent a great deal of time together. They often visited a friend's ranch outside Hollywood where they could relax, ride horses, go climbing, or swim at Lake Arrowhead.[7] "Sailor" was a favored term for Garbo's male, gay, and bisexual friends. In 1929, during filming with Asther on location at Santa Catalina Island for The Single Standard, she was overheard berating him for grabbing her so roughly: "I'm not one of your sailors."[8]

Rumors swirled in the early 1930s that Asther had relationships with fellow Swedes, director Mauritz Stiller and the writer Hjalmar Bergman, among other male colleagues. Asther mentions some of this in his memoirs.[citation needed] He had a long-term relationship with actor/stuntman and World War II Navy sailor Ken DuMain. According to DuMain, he met Asther on Hollywood Boulevard in the early 1940s, and they enjoyed a long-term relationship.[8]

In August 1930, Asther entered a lavender marriage with Vivian Duncan, one of his Topsy and Eva co-stars.[9] They had one child, Evelyn Asther Duncan, dubbed by the media as "The International Baby" due to her Swedish father, American mother, and Bavarian birth. This made Evelyn’s nationality debatable, so Asther offered to apply for American citizenship if it would help the process of getting her into the United States. Asther and Duncan's marriage proved stormy from the start, and became tabloid fodder; they divorced in 1932.[citation needed]

Memoirs

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Asther's posthumously published memoir[10] in Swedish[11] had a foreword by theatre historian Uno "Myggan" Ericson, who had met Asther only once in 1958 on arriving in Gothenburg. The afterword was by Iwo Wiklander. The middle of the book, written by Asther himself, covers the years between his birth and return to Sweden in 1958. Wiklander claimed in later interviews that Asther was intent on erasing parts of his life before his death, and that much material in the autobiography was exaggerated or completely fictitious to make a more interesting story. Countess Linde Klinckowström-von Rosen claimed their "engagement" was a practical joke while filming together. She did however, introduce Asther to her family, and to the Swedish painter Nils Dardel and his freethinking artistic circle.[7]

Death and legacy

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Nils Asther died on October 13, 1981, at a hospital in Farsta, Stockholm. He is buried in Hotagen, Jämtland.

In 1960, Asther was inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame with a motion pictures star at 6705 Hollywood Boulevard for his contributions to the film industry.[12]

Selected filmography

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On soundtracks

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Selected stage

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References

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  1. ^ a b c d Swedish Film Database – in Swedish only
  2. ^ Nils Asther page on "Golden Silents"
  3. ^ Britannica.com – Nils Asther
  4. ^ New York Times 16 October 1981
  5. ^ Dielemans, Jennie; Quistbergh, Fredrik (2001). Motstånd. Bokförlaget DN. ISBN 978-91-7588-367-0.
  6. ^ Anthony Slide, Silent topics, essays on undocumented areas of silent film, Scarecrow Press, 2005
  7. ^ a b Nils Asther: Narrens väg – Ingen gudasaga, (Carlsson Bokförlag, 1988)
  8. ^ a b Silent Topics: Essays on Undocumented Areas of Silent Film by Anthony Slide ISBN 0810850168
  9. ^ Bradley, Edwin M. The First Hollywood Musicals
  10. ^ Asther, Nils (1988). Ericson, Uno “Myggan” (ed.). Narrens väg – Ingen gudasaga – memoarer [The Road of the Jester – Not a God's tale – memoir] (posthumous autobiography) (in Swedish). Iwo Wiklander (afterward). Stockholm, SV: Carlsson.
  11. ^ "Nils Asther page". Answers.
  12. ^ "Hollywood Walk of Fame – Nils Asther". walkoffame.com. Hollywood Chamber of Commerce. Retrieved November 8, 2017.
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