Why so much villification during the Rossellini affair?

I think it had to do with her image. She was a walking personification of the all American girl (although she wasn't American) - natural, down to earth, shy and sweet - or as it says somewhere "the ideal of American womanhood" . Nobody expected her of all people to divorce her husband and go off with some Italian director.

I think people had her on a pedestal - great actress as well as being a good wife and mother. As the previous poster said, it wasn't expected of her.

http://www.silentfilmstars.weebly.com

Because people associated her with a Saint. Before that happened she played a nun and Joan of Arc. The thing with Loretta Young though is misleading. Yes she did have an illegitimate child, but at that time she tried to hide it because it could have ruined her carrier-along with Clark Gables.

At least where women were concerned, having a child out of wedlock in the 1930s,'40s, or '50s would have meant the end of their careers in Hollywood if doing so became public knowledge. There was a social stigma attached to illegitimate children, as they were called, everywhere.

But Hollywood also thought in terms of dollars and cents. Even if an actress was admired for playing a seductress on the screens, moviegoers expected certain moral standards to be upheld in her private life. The studios feared that if these standards were violated moviegoers would stay away from that actress's films.

At the time Ingrid Bergman became pregnant by the director Roberto Rossellini, in 1949, actresses were expected to either secretly abort offspring from unmarried relationships, or secretly give them up for adoption. In 1937, Loretta Young actually adopted her own nineteen month-old daughter from the Catholic orphanage which had been taking care of the child since soon after her birth. She made believe the girl, whose father was Clark Gable, was not related to her.


According to her autobiography, Lana Turner's baby by her first husband, bandleader Artie Shaw, was aborted in 1940 after he refused to wait until after the child's birth to divorce her. Eight years later, she had a second abortion after the married actor, Tyrone Power, made her pregnant. Ava Gardner also admitted to having two legal abortions of her husband Frank Sinatra's children in the book she wrote about her life. They happened in 1952 and '53, in England. She explained that his career was not doing well and that raising children would be a strain on their finances. None of this reached the press.


A biography of Judy Garland described her first pregnancy, when she was twenty, in 1942. It happened during her marriage to composer David Rose, her first husband. She wanted the baby. But studio head, Louis B. Mayer, and her very domineering mother, who had helped to direct her career since Garland was a child, decided that having a baby would interfere with her moviemaking. She even threatened to put Garland in a closet if she didn't obey her command. Rose went along with mama's decree. Garland was taken to an abortionist near Hollywood. It was all hushed up.


What these events also prove was that a certain class of women had easy access to abortions when they were only legal in the United States to save the mothers' lives. Women who were not movie actresses, but who could afford to travel to foreign countries were in this group.


Ingrid Bergman was condemned by women's groups as well as Hollywood. I suppose at least some of those ladies thought that if they stayed in failed marriages, she could too. Bergman found herself in a situation where she refused to play their hypocritical game.


There was a double standard. Bergman gave birth to her love child, Robertino
Rossellini, while both she and his father, Roberto Rossellini, were married to other people. He had a son by his marriage while Bergman had a daughter by her first husband. Both would be divorced to marry each other. But, as so often happens, the woman bore the brunt of disapproval. She was banished from Hollywood for seven years. Perhaps I'm wrong. But I don't know of attacks upon Roberto Rossellini while some moralists would have tarred and feathered Ingrid Bergman if it had been allowed.

I think the fact she was already married and had a child had a lot to do with it. Then she chose Rossellini over her existing family and didn't have any relationship with her first-born daughter for years. She had a very wholesome image, but her actions during this destroyed her career in America.

Ingrid Bergman was developed by David Selznick and became one of the movies greatest stars with such films as 'Gaslight', 'Nortorious', 'For Whom The Bell Tolls', 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde', 'Adam Had Four Sons', etc, and working with such stars as Gary Cooper, Susan Hayward, Cary Grant, Lana Turner, Gregory Peck and of course in classic 'Casablanca' with Humphrey Bogart, In a few short years Bergman was the top female star in Hollywood. Ingrid Bergman's image was solidifed with her magical work as a Catholic Nun in Bing Crosby's 'The Bells Of St. Mary's' at Paramount.

Ingrid Bergman while a married woman and had an affair with an Italian Roberto Rosselini and got pregnant. Her husband Dr. Peter Lindstrom refused her requests for Divorce, and was awarded custody of their daughter Pia, and Bergman did not see her beloved daughter for years.

The US Congress got into the act and BANNED Bergman from the USA for a morals clause!!!!!

20th Century Fox gave Bergman a second chance and starred Ingrid Bergman in 'Anastasia' with Helen Hayes ( which was filmed in Europe), and Bergman was awarded her 2nd Oscar. Ingrid Bergman was finally re admitted to the USA and attended the 1959 Oscar ceremony presenting the Best Oscar to MGM's 'Gigi' when Bergman appeared on stage at that Oscar show after returning to Hollywood Ingrid Bergman was given a long and emotional standing ovation that went on for minutes.

Ingrid Bergman resumed her great career with starring roles in films such as 'Inn of The Sixth Happiness', 'Indiscreet', 'Cactus Flower' and winning a 3rd Oscar for 'Murder On The Orient Express'

Ingrid Bergman just before she died was interviewed by a young journalist and asked what all the old ruckus was about, and Ingrid replied, "I Had A Baby" the journo replied, yes but what caused the ruckus?

It seems shameful now years later that Ingrid Bergman was treated as a outcast

typical double standards play a part in it as well as her cultivated image

I think she was a great actor and very beautiful but I can't understand how she could leave her first daughter, Pia Lindstrom. It seems cold to me.