Norwegian film star dies

October 12, 2011

Vibeke Mowinckel Falk is dead at 93 years old. She is remembered for, among other roles, playing Anna Reinche in the classic film “Guest Baardsen.”

Mowinckel Falk, who died Sunday, was born September 27,1918. Through a long career, she played both comedy and romance roles, but also was a serious theatre actress.

“She got her big break when she played at Alfred Maurstad in Guest Baardsen in 1939, but then she had already made her debut at the National Theatre. During the war she lived in Sweden with her then-husband, actor Lauritz Falk. Here she participated in major roles in several Swedish films,” says film archivist Bent Kvalvik of the National Library.

A movie poster from Falk's debut film in 1939

Vibeke Mowinckel Falk, an actress famous for her 1940s roles, is dead at 93 years old.

She is remembered for, among other roles, playing Anna Reinche in the classic film “Guest Baardsen.”

Mowinckel Falk, who died Sunday, was born September 27,1918. Through a long career, she played both comedy and romance roles, but also was a serious theatre actress.

Falk was a popular character in Swedish 1940s movies, with leading roles in “Newlywed” (1941), “The Clock on Rønneberg” (1944) and “Brother Between” (1946).

“After she returned to Norway in the early 1950’s, she played, among other things, the character Rosalind in Shakespeare’s comedy “As You Like It.” She also played Ophelia in Hamlet at Trøndelag Teater, as well as “Helene” in the romantic play “Carousel” by Alexander Brinchmann. This role she did in fact twice in ten years. She did many smaller things for quite a long time, having done the great prima donna roles when she was younger,” says Kvalvik.

From 1960-68, she was at The National Scene (Den Nationale Scene) and afterwards, she worked freelance. From the end of the 1970s, she appeared as a supporting actor in several films including “Julia Julia” (1981), “Goodbye solidarity” (1985), “Viva Villa Road!” (1989) and “Kristin Lavransdatter” (1995).

She has also participated in some TV productions, such as the crime series “Nitimemordet” (1975) and in “Safer can no one be.” As late as 2001 she had a supporting role in the series “Nini – the quiet week.”

“I remember she was interviewed by the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation in the 1980s, when it emerged that she had received a film offer from the UK, in collaboration with Clark Gable. At the time, this was difficult because of family circumstances. Instead she chose to play at the theater in Norway,” says Kvalvik.

Vibeke Falk was married from 1937-1950 to actor Lauritz Falk. She was the stepmother to her nine years older colleague Stein Grieg Halvorsen, and grandmother of comedian Stein Johan Halvorsen Grieg.

The latter describes his grandmother as a natural focal point in the family, with a great sense of humor and a great source of inspiration for him as a comedian.

“She was as beautiful on the inside as she was on the outside. She was also very concerned about what I was doing and very inspiring to me in everything I did,” he said.

The comedian also mentions the particularity that his grandmother and his father, Stein Grieg Halvorsen, who turns 102 years October 19, appeared in the same scene in the play “Dictator Within” at the National Theatre in 1939.

“At that time my mother was in her cradle at home. I like to think that my father said hello to Grandma’s first-born at that time, my mother, who would later become his wife thirty years later.”

Source: Aftenposten

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