Hilda Borgström

Born in 1871 in Stockholm, Borgström made her film debut in 1912. She starred in leading parts in Victor Sjöström's silent films Ingeborg Holm (aka Margaret Day) (1913) and Körkarlen (aka The Phantom Carriage/The Stroke of Midnight/Thy Soul Shall Bear Witness) in 1921. Borgström started out to be a dancer and trained at the old Royal Theatre's ballet school in Stockholm 1880-87. Later she decided to turn to the theatre instead and studied drama. Her professional debut on stage came in 1890 at one of Albert Ranft's theatres. She was an actress of Sweden's national stage, the Royal Dramatic Theatre (Dramaten), between 1900–1912 and 1920-1938.

She retired from the stage in 1938 because of stage fright and returned to film. She appeared in several supporting parts in Swedish films in the 1930s-1950s, for example in Ingmar Bergman's early 1948 film Music in Darkness, in the thriller Ett brott (A Crime) (1940) and in Kejsarn av Portugallien (The Emperor of Portugallia) (1944), based on the novel by Selma Lagerlöf, and in a pair of films by Hasse Ekman such as Kungliga patrasket (The Royal Rabble) (1945) and Flickan från tredje raden (The Girl from the Third Row) (1949). Borgström was also a teacher in the performing arts at the Royal Dramatic Theatre's acting school; Dramatens elevskola, in the 1930s-1940s. Altogether she made some 80 parts on film.

She is today perhaps primarily known as the narrator in the short film Tomten - en vintersaga (The Tomte - A Winter's Tale) (1941), where she reads the poem Tomten by Viktor Rydberg. The film is shown at Christmas Eve every year on Swedish television.

She died in Stockholm on 2 January 1953.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Hilda Borgström.

• Hilda Teresia Borgström at Svenskt kvinnobiografiskt lexikon
• Hilda Borgström at IMDb