Wikipedia:Today's featured article/August 30, 2009



Harriet Bosse (1878–1961) was a Norwegian–Swedish actress. A celebrity in her own day, Bosse is today most commonly remembered as the third wife of August Strindberg, one of the originators of modern drama. Having secured an engagement at the Royal Dramatic Theatre ("Dramaten"), the main drama venue of Sweden's capital Stockholm, Bosse caught the attention of Strindberg with her intelligent acting and exotic "oriental" appearance. Strindberg wrote a number of major roles for Bosse during their short and stormy relationship, especially in 1900–1901, a period of great creativity and productivity for him. Like his previous two marriages, the relationship failed through Strindberg's jealousy, which some biographers have considered paranoid. The arc of Strindberg's feelings about Bosse, from worship to rage, is reflected in the roles he wrote for her to play, or as portraits of her. Despite her real-life role as muse to Strindberg, she remained an independent artist. Bosse married Swedish actor Gunnar Wingård in 1908, and Swedish screen actor, director, and matinee idol Edvin Adolphson in 1927. All three of her marriages ended in divorce after a few years, leaving her as a hard-working single mother with a daughter by Strindberg and a son by Wingård. On retiring after a high-profile acting career based in Stockholm, she returned to her roots in Oslo. (more...)

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