Latest news with #TainaElg
The Guardian
12-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Taina Elg obituary
Asked how she would know when she had hit the big time, the beguiling actor Taina Elg, who has died aged 95, said: 'When people no longer trip over my name.' When she arrived in the US in 1954 at the start of her contract with MGM, a newspaper campaign engineered by the studio and sponsored by Armour Star meat products offered readers the chance to win a six-room house or $25,000 cash by proposing a new name for this latest exotic star-in-the-making. Contestants were asked to send in suggested names along with labels from corned beef hash and devilled ham. This all came to nought, and she was still not-so-plain-old Taina Elg when she began appearing on screen. She landed her first major US role in 1957 (the same year that the Golden Globes named her New Foreign Star of the Year) in the Gene Kelly musical Les Girls. Newspapers were still helpfully reminding their readers at every opportunity that her first name rhymed with 'Dinah'. They were also prone to tell them, as the Times-Tribune did in 1958, that Elg was 'the only Finn of note' at that time in Hollywood and 'the first from her country to become a genuine star of cinema'. In Les Girls, directed by George Cukor and with music by Cole Porter, Elg held her own alongside Mitzi Gaynor and Kay Kendall as dancers in a cabaret troupe headed by Kelly. Based on Constance Tomkinson's reminiscences of her time in the Folies Bergère, and showing each character in succession looking back on the troupe's glory days before acrimony set in, the film's use of contradictory perspectives made it the closest thing to a musical take on Kurosawa's Rashomon. Elg's performance as the apparently lovelorn and suicidal member of the group won her a second Golden Globe. She followed this with Imitation General (1958), in which she was a French farm worker involved with a master sergeant (played by Glenn Ford) who impersonates a dead general to keep up his platoon's morale. The role was played entirely in French until her final words to Ford: 'I … love … you.' 'I'm the only Finnish actress working here,' Elg said the following year. 'Yet of the six films I've made, I have portrayed a French girl four times.' Watusi (1959), in which she was a missionary's daughter rescued by explorers and caught up in their jungle adventures, took the unfashionable route of making her German. In the same year, she starred in the second adaptation of John Buchan's The 39 Steps (and the first in colour) as the netball coach who ends up handcuffed to the hero, here played by Kenneth More, as he is pursued by assassins. Elg was born in Helsinki, and raised in assorted other Finnish locations, including Turku, by her mother, Helena Doroumova, and father, Åke Elg, who were both pianists. During the Finnish-Soviet wars, the family were forced to leave, returning to Helsinki only after the end of the second world war. Taina trained as a ballet dancer from an early age and was accepted by the Finnish National Ballet as a child, which led to a handful of small roles in domestic films. She also danced at Sadler's Wells and at the Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas in Paris and the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, before an injury led her to reconsider her career. She was spotted in London by the producer Edwin H Knopf, brother of the publisher Alfred. After an impressive screen test directed by Mel Ferrer, she was signed to a seven-year contract with MGM in Hollywood. Small roles followed in two films starring Lana Turner – the biblical tale The Prodigal (1955), in which Elg played a slave, and the 16th-century romance Diane (1956) – as well as Gaby (also 1956), with Leslie Caron as a French ballet dancer. The career high-point of Les Girls was never equalled. For the remainder of her career, Elg worked mostly in television and theatre. Occasional exceptions included Hercules in New York (1970), which gave an early starring role to the young Arnold Schwarzenegger. In 1962, she headed the national touring production of Irma La Douce. In 1973, she starred on Broadway in Look to the Lilies, as well as understudying Julie Christie as Yelena in a production of Uncle Vanya. 'I didn't get a chance to go on and play it, as Julie was in excellent health,' she said. In 1982, she originated the role of the philandering hero's mother in Nine, the Broadway musical based on Fellini's 8½. Her son was played by Raul Julía, with whom she had also starred in the 1974 revival of Where's Charley?, for which she earned a Tony nomination. She briefly found her way back to cinema thanks to two directors with a taste for the power of nostalgia. Mike Figgis's thriller Liebestraum (1991), which was also Kim Novak's final film before retiring, gave Elg her first movie role in more than two decades, as the matriarch of a department store business. She was a teacher in the romantic comedy The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996), starring and directed by Barbra Streisand. Her final screen role came in the Finnish caper Kummelin Jackpot (2006). Elg is survived by her son, the jazz guitarist Raoul Björkenheim, from a five-year marriage to Carl Gustav Björkenheim, which ended in divorce in 1958. Her second marriage, to Rocco Caporale, an academic, ended with his death in 2008. Taina Elg, actor, born 9 March 1930; died 15 May 2025
Yahoo
28-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Taina Elg, Actress in ‘Les Girls' and ‘The 39 Steps,' Dies at 95
Taina Elg, the Finland-born actress and dancer who starred opposite Gene Kelly in the colorful 1957 George Cukor musical Les Girls and with Kenneth More in the 1959 remake of the spy thriller The 39 Steps, has died. She was 95. Elg died May 15 in an assisted care facility in her native Helsinki, her family told the Helsinki Times. More from The Hollywood Reporter Paris Gaming Studio Amplitude, Newly Independent From Sega, Raises $13.5 Million HBO's 'Harry Potter' Series Finds Its Harry, Ron and Hermione James McEachin, Star of 'Tenafly' and Perry Mason Telefilms, Dies at 94 On Broadway, Elg worked alongside Raul Julia in the 1974-75 revival of Frank Loesser's Where's Charley? — she earned a Tony nomination for best featured actress in a musical for that — and in the 1982-84 original production of Tommy Tune's Nine, where she played the mother of his character, Guido. Her breakthrough in Hollywood came with her turn as cabaret dancer Angèle Ducros in MGM's Les Girls, which also starred Mitzi Gaynor and Kay Kendall and featured music from Cole Porter. She and Kendall shared the Golden Globe for best actress in a musical or comedy for their work. In the Rank Organisation's remake of The 39 Steps, Elg portrayed the schoolteacher Miss Fisher, who inadvertently gets involved with a British diplomat (More's Richard Hannay) out to decipher and break up a sinister plot against England. (The 1935 original, of course, was directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starred Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll.) The daughter of pianists, Taina Elisabeth Elg was born in Helsinki on March 9, 1930. She appeared in her first film at age 10, danced with the Finnish National Ballet in Helsinki and went on to study ballet in Sweden in Stockholm and Gothenburg and in London with the Royal Ballet. She was discovered in London by American film producer Edwin H. Knopf and, in the wake of the Hollywood success enjoyed by fellow Scandinavian Anita Ekberg, signed to a seven-year contract by MGM. Elg appeared alongside Lana Turner in The Prodigal (1955) and Diane (1956), then received a Golden Globe for best female foreign newcomer for her performance in Gaby (1956), starring Leslie Caron. In her follow-up to Les Girls, she starred as a Frenchwoman who owns a farm in the war comedy Imitation General (1958), starring Glenn Ford and Red Buttons. Her last movie under contract at MGM was the African adventure Watusi (1959), starring George Montgomery. With her film career waning, Elg moved to the stage and starred as the title character in a touring production of Irma La Douce in 1962. In 1970, she made the first of her seven Broadway appearances, portraying a nun in Josh Logan's Look to the Lillies, based on the 1963 Sidney Poitier film Lilies of the Field. Later, she toured with Gigi in 1984-85 and with Titanic in 1999-2000. In 1980-81, Elg stood out as Olympia Buchanan, the banished first wife of Texas tycoon Asa Buchanan (Philip Carey), on the ABC daytime drama One Life to Live. Her character memorably falls over a balcony at a costume party to her death. Her résumé included the films The Bacchantes (1961), Hercules in New York (1970), Liebestraum (1991) and Barbra Streisand's The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996) and the soap operas The Doctors, Guiding Light, The Edge of Night and Loving. Her son is jazz guitarist Raoul Björkenheim. Elg was married to economist and importer Carl 'Poku' Björkenheim from 1953 until their 1958 divorce and to educator Rocco Caporale from 1982 until his death in 2008, when she left New York after more than three decades to return to her home country. Four years earlier, she received the prestigious Order of the Lion from Finland. Best of The Hollywood Reporter 13 of Tom Cruise's Most Jaw-Dropping Stunts Hollywood Stars Who Are One Award Away From an EGOT 'The Goonies' Cast, Then and Now
Pink Villa
28-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Pink Villa
Who Was Taina Elg? Golden Globe-Winning Star of Les Girls and The 39 Steps Passes Away at 95
Trigger Warning: This article contains references to an individual's death. Taina Elg, the Finland-born actress and dancer best known for her roles in Les Girls and the 1959 version of The 39 Steps, has died at the age of 95. Her family confirmed that she passed away on May 15 at an assisted care facility in Helsinki, her hometown, according to the Helsinki Times. Born on March 9, 1930, in Helsinki to pianist parents, Taina Elisabeth Elg began her career in the arts as a child. She danced with the Finnish National Ballet and later studied ballet in Sweden and London. Her talent caught the eye of American film producer Edwin H. Knopf, leading to a seven-year contract with MGM. Elg's breakout Hollywood role came in the 1957 musical Les Girls, directed by George Cukor and starring Gene Kelly. She played Angèle Ducros, a cabaret dancer, alongside Kay Kendall and Mitzi Gaynor. Elg and Kendall shared the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy for their performance. The film also featured music by Cole Porter. In 1956, she won the Golden Globe for Best Female Foreign Newcomer for her role in Gaby, where she starred opposite Leslie Caron. Her other MGM credits include The Prodigal (1955), Diane (1956), Imitation General (1958), and Watusi (1959). Elg also starred in the 1959 remake of Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps. She played schoolteacher Miss Fisher, opposite Kenneth More as Richard Hannay. The role marked one of her most notable appearances outside the musical genre. After her film career slowed, Elg found success on stage. She appeared in the 1974-75 Broadway revival of Where's Charley? with Raul Julia, earning a Tony nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Musical. From 1982 to 1984, she starred in the original Broadway run of Nine, portraying the mother of the lead character Guido, played by Tommy Tune. Elg made several TV appearances, including on One Life to Live (1980–81) as Olympia Buchanan, and on other soap operas like The Doctors, Guiding Light, The Edge of Night, and Loving. Her later film credits included The Bacchantes (1961), Hercules in New York (1970), Liebestraum (1991), and The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996), directed by Barbra Streisand. She was married to Carl 'Poku' Björkenheim from 1953 to 1958 and later to educator Rocco Caporale from 1982 until his death in 2008. She had one son, jazz guitarist Raoul Björkenheim. Elg returned to Finland in 2008 and was awarded the prestigious Order of the Lion of Finland in 2004 for her contributions to the arts. ALSO READ: Who Was Presley Chweneyagae? South African Actor Part of Oscar Winning Film Tsotsi Dies at 40
Daily Mirror
27-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
Gene Kelly's co-star and award winner Taina Elg dies as fans pay tribute
Les Girls star and Golden Globe winner Taina Elg has died at the age of 95. The star's family confirmed that she died on 15 May in a care facility in Helsinki, where she spent her final years. The actress was best known for starring alongside Gene Kelly in Les Girl - for which she won the Golden Globe for best actress in a musical or comedy. She went onto appear in The 39 Steps, Hercules in New York and The Mirror Has Two Faces. Taina also took the theatre world by storm, working alongside Raul Julia in the 1974 revival of Rank Loesser's Where's Charley?. She received a Tony nomination for her performance in the role and later did so for her performance in a production of Nine. The Finnish star was also best known for her roles in 1955's The Prodigal as well as her performance in 1956's Gaby, for which she received her first Golden Globe nomination. In the '80s, Taina took on the role of Olympia Buchanan in American soap One Life to Live - with her time on the show coming to an end when her character fell to her death from balcony during a costume party. Taina was married twice in her life: first to economist and importer Carl 'Poku' Bjorkenheim from 1953 until their divorce in 1958. She wed a second time to educator Rocco Caporale in 1982, with the pair staying together until his death in 2008. After living in New York for over three decades, she chose to return to Finland after the death of her second husband. She is survived by her son Raoul Bjorkenheim - a Finish-American jazz guitarist.
Scottish Sun
27-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Scottish Sun
Taina Elg dead at 95: Double Golden Globe-winning actress who starred next to Gene Kelly in Hollywood's golden age dies
The iconic star also appeared opposite Kenneth More STAR GONE Taina Elg dead at 95: Double Golden Globe-winning actress who starred next to Gene Kelly in Hollywood's golden age dies Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) DOUBLE Golden Globe-winning star Taina Elg has died aged 95. Taina Elg, a Finland-born actress and dancer who starred alongside Gene Kelly in the 1957 musical Les Girls, sadly passed away on May 15. Sign up for the Entertainment newsletter Sign up 3 Taina Elg has sadly died aged 95 Credit: Her family confirmed she died in an assisted care facility in Helsinki, as reported by the Helsinki Times. The iconic star also appeared opposite Kenneth More in the 1959 remake of spy film The 39 Steps. 3 The iconic star appeared opposite Kenneth More in the 1959 remake of spy film The 39 Steps Credit: 3 She starred alongside Gene Kelly in the 1957 musical Les Girls Credit: Pacific Coast News More to follow... For the latest news on this story, keep checking back at The U.S. Sun, your go-to destination for the best celebrity news, sports news, real-life stories, jaw-dropping pictures, and must-see videos. Like us on Facebook at TheSunUS and follow us on X at @TheUSSun
