Lars Schmidt

Lars Reinhold Schmidt (11 June 1917 – 18 October 2009) was a Swedish theatrical producer, director and publisher. He owned theaters in Paris, France, and Sweden. Schmidt was instrumental in bringing American theater to the European stage. He produced and translated numerous post-war American plays in Europe; including A Street Car Named Desire, Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, Oklahoma! and Anne Frank. He is considered one of the most important cultural personalities of the 20th century evolution and commercialization of European theatre. In a 1964 Life magazine article, he was called "Europe's most important theatrical producer." Lars Schmidt married three-time Academy Award-winning film star Ingrid Bergman in December 1958. Early life He was born in Uddevalla, Sweden. After working in coal mines in Swansea, Wales, he attended the City of London College in 1939. Schmidt returned to Sweden to serve in the army with the Bohuslän Regiment, and the following year he founded Lars Schmidt & Company to procure plays for the Gothenburg City Theatre. In 1941 aged 24, Lars Schmidt moved to New York with the dream to become a writer for theater. His first Atlantic crossing during World War II to the United States, was eventful. His vessel M/S Carolina Thorden, was torpedoed and sunk by German war planes, after departing from Finland. A British trawler rescued the survivors from the incident, and left them on the Faroe Islands. Schmidt lost his passport, letters of introduction and only had the clothes on his back when he finally arrived in New York, via Havana and Miami. He spent six months in New York, and during that time forged relationships with theater heavyweights such as Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II and Russel Crouse. He returned to Europe as a Swedish diplomatic courier. On the return leg of his journey he had to travel through Germany by train, surviving through bombing raids and hiding in ditches, while carrying both the Swedish diplomatic bag and the Scandinavian rights to Arsenic and Old Lace.