The Journeys That Shaped Inger

Inger Stevens poses at LaGuardia Airport
bound for Washington, D.C., October 1965.

Official records and lists may appear to be dull reading material; however, when the records involve Inger Stevens and can be paired with stories of her experiences, a warm profile of a lively woman emerges.

I've set out to match records I've discovered with anecdotes found in various articles about Inger as well as in William Patterson's book The Farmer's Daughter Remembered.

A Star is Born

On Thursday, October 18, 1934 in a Stockholm hospital, Inger Stensland was born to parents 21-year-old Per and 20-year-old Lisbet. Inger was the first child of Per and Lisbet, who were married six months prior to her birth.  According to Patterson, Inger was named for the Norse princess Ingebjørg. I've highlighted Inger's entry in the Swedish Birth Index. Listed as adöpt (döpt meaning christened or baptised), Per Stensland and Lisbet Potthoff are indexed to the right.

Inger's entry in the Swedish Birth Index in 1934

Per to America

Following a separation from Lisbet, Per traveled to America as an academic fellow in 1940. (Inger and her brother Ola would be left behind in the care of their family maid before moving in with their aunt and uncle.) That same year the American-Scandinavian Foundation of New York City released the following inquiry regarding the status of fellows stranded in the United States due to World War II. Per would not return to Sweden. In 1944, Per, with a new bride and a baby on the way, would request that his two eldest children join him in America.

Inger's father began a fellowship in America in 1940.

A Lonely Journey to America

9-year-old Inger and younger brother Ola arrived in America from Sweden in July 1944. The children were chaperoned by a family friend and traveled on the SS Margaret Johnson for six weeks before docking in New Orleans on July 15, 1944. Leaving family and country would be difficult for a person of any age, but little Inger and Ola's journey included additional challenges that would remain painful memories for Inger for the duration of her life. For example, all freighter passengers were inspected by German troops during a stop in Denmark and the freighter was even followed by a German U-boat during a portion of the journey. 

To make the experience even more frightening, Inger's father Per was not in New Orleans to meet his children. Biographer Patterson writes that Per was too busy working on a thesis paper to meet Inger and Ola, neither of whom could speak English. Instead of being reunited with the father they had not seen in four years, the Stensland siblings were met by the Travelers Aid Society and escorted by a Salvation Army representative on a train to New York City. When they reached New York City, Per was still not there to greet his children. Inger was told he was busy with his academic work in Cape Cod and the children were placed in separate rooms of a New York City hotel. The next morning Inger and Ola boarded a train for Cape Cod where they were finally reunited with their father.

Inger would later tell reporters that Per "couldn't afford to meet us." She would recall the terror she faced aboard the ship and on arrival in America. 

New York seemed to us then like a city of revolving doors. Every time we went through one, I was sure I'd lose Ola...After dinner, the Travelers Aid Society member took me to the thirteenth floor of the hotel and put Ola somewhere else; mine was a tiny green room that looked like a cell. Have you ever been on the thirteenth floor during a thunderstorm? I was sure I'd be killed before morning. 

Inger would share that she and Ola expected to see cowboys and indians on arrival. Instead:

When our freighter docked at New Orleans after being trailed by a German U-boat for almost a week, the Travelers Aid Society brought us to New York. Two days after our arrival, a hurricane struck Cape Cod and partially demolished our little house. I was terrified. I begged to go back to Sweden. I'd been prepared to face Indians, but I didn't dream life in America could be so violent.

In 1965, Inger said:

I still feel like the same girl who got off the boat from Sweden. Maybe a little taller and a little more money, that's all. But I'm not changed inside. 

Inger and Ola Stensland (highlighted) arrive in New Orleans on July 15, 1944.

Although Per is listed as the relative they will be joining in America,
it took days of lonely travel for Inger and Ola to reach their father.

Crunch and Des in Bermuda

A passenger manifest dated October 27, 1955 shows Inger embarking from Bermuda on return to New York. Inger traveled to Bermuda to play the part of 'The Actress' in a Crunch and Des episode entitled Salt Water Daffy. Although filmed in 1955, Salt Water Daffy was not released on television until 1956. In his book on Inger, Patterson shares a letter that Inger wrote to a friend about her Bermuda experience:

I saw how people actually lived which is something I could never have seen if I didn't do it on my own...I wanted to be in and around the water every minute because it is so beautiful. The water wasn't blue; it was a rich green, but crystal clear and as we flew in over Bermuda the sight of the water alone was breathtaking. Under the water you could see the coral reefs, which looked like black sleeping animals, from the sky. Since I worked all the time, I didn't get to swim or enjoy it the way I would have wanted to, but Tony and I hope to go there together sometime.

(Note: Tony is Anthony Soglio, Inger's agent whom she married in summer 1955 and divorced in 1958.) 

Inger is listed on a 1955 passenger manifest. She was filming
an episode of Crunch and Des in Bermuda.

A Beauty Judges Beauty

On November 20, 1959, Inger landed in Los Angeles on a Pan Am flight. For promotional purposes, she served as a judge at the Miss Colombia Beauty Contest at the Hotel Tequendama in Bogata, Colombia, and made her way home via Panama.

Inger returns to L.A. from Colombia by way of Panama.

Traumatic Landing in Lisbon

On April 4, 1961, Inger embarked on a vacation that started in Paris and included stops in London, Madrid, and Rome with her hairstylist and friend Leslie Blanchard. After Leslie returned to America, Inger visited family in Sweden in May. In the final days of her trip, Inger boarded a Boeing 707 that stopped in Lisbon on June 15th. As it landed, the plane's nose gear collapsed creating a fire. Immediately after Inger and her fellow passengers exited the plane, it exploded. All passengers and crew were physically unhurt, but all were certainly shaken by the close call.

Source: The Star Press. June 17, 1961.

Source: Morristown Gazette. June 27, 1961.

Inger reportedly discussed the incident with columnist Cynthia Lowry in February 1963, saying:

I still hate to talk about it. The plane started burning and I thought I would be burned alive. And I put on my coat, of all things, and curled up on the floor. Somehow I escaped and now I feel as if I were on borrowed time, that the worst is over and it's clear sailing. But it is reassuring to know you continued to function under pressure and didn't give in to hysteria.

William Patterson writes that Inger was so rattled by the event that she chose to forego air travel, returning to America by boat. However, a passenger list for Pan American flight No. 153 shows Inger boarded a flight in Lisbon and arrived in New York by plane on June 20th.

Inger returns from Lisbon after a near-death experience.

Secret Honeymooners 

Six months after her widely reported Lisbon flight, Inger and her new husband Ike Jones managed to fly under the press's radar—although not for as long as we have been led to believe, but that deserves its own post on another day. On December 29, 1961, Inger arrived back home in Los Angeles after a trip to Mexico City. Browsing the flight's passenger list, I found the record for Inger's husband Ike Jones, who was also on the CMA flight on the 29th. (CMA was an affiliate of Pan American that provided non-stop flights from Los Angeles to Mexico City.)

Ike Jones in November 1959, two years before
his wedding to Inger Stevens.

Ike was a producer for Nat King Cole's Kell-Cole Productions as well as a film producer and actor. Inger and Ike met at a Hollywood party in September 1960. A little over a year later, in November 1961, Inger and Ike privately married in Tijuana. After a quiet celebration for two at a small restaurant and motel, the couple returned to Los Angeles. A month later, Inger and Ike traveled to Mexico City for a secret honeymoon. 

Although their relationship was far from the best-kept secret in Hollywood, the general public would not be fully aware of Inger's marriage to Ike until after Inger's death.

Inger returns to Los Angeles after a secret honeymoon in Mexico City.

Ike Jones, Inger's husband, listed on the same flight from Mexico City.

While this post includes a small sampling of her travel records, the documents represent major experiences—her Swedish birth, arduous immigration to the U.S., early television filming and film promotion work, dangerous Lisbon landing, and private marriage—that would shape Inger's life and worldview in significant ways.

Inger in a late-1950's travel photo.

Sources:

Documents were retrieved via Ancestry and Familysearch.

"Ex-UCLA Star Named to Belafonte's Harbel Film Co." Jet. November 5, 1959.

http://files.lib.byu.edu/family-history-library/research-outlines/Scandinavia/Sweden.pdf

Hopper, Hedda. "Inger Too Busy for Romance." The Los Angeles Times. May 18, 1958.

Lowry, Cynthia. "Not the Girl Next Door?" The Akron Beacon Journal. February 12, 1963.

Patterson, William T. The Farmer's Daughter Remembered. Xlibris. 2000. 

Indomitable Inger and Her 'Post' Remarks

In early 1964, Richard Warren Lewis wrote a two-page feature on Inger that primarily focused on the challenges Inger had faced in her life up to that point. 

On her family:

I witnessed an awful lot of fighting in my family. I got used to keeping things to myself and never really saying what was on my mind. I was always afraid of hurting somebody.

On her 1955 marriage to agent Anthony Soglio:

[The wedding day] was the worst day of my life. I wanted to be anyplace but where I was. I married him for a lot of the wrong reasons. I had been dating him for about eight months, and he was the only person I knew in New York. For me the whole marriage proved pretty much of a nightmare. The experience made a lasting impression on me. I still have a fear of marriage.

On her 1959 suicide attempt:

It was such a relief. At that moment I thought it was the most rational thing I'd ever done in my life. For a long time I had nobody to talk to, including the man I had been with. When I began trusting the analyst, everything came out too fast. I felt lonely and sorry for myself. I felt like I didn't quite belong in the film world, that I wasn't good enough. I was constantly getting depressed. I had made a complete mess of my emotional life by trying to be very giving to a man because I was hoping he would do the same to me. I was just screaming out for somebody to love me. I kept searching for some kind of peace and tranquility. The more I searched for it, the more holocaust there was around me. It kept getting worse. [At a New Year's Eve party] Everyone was drinking, and it became more and more depressing. Everything seemed so distorted. I felt I was on the outside looking in. All of a sudden there was only emptiness. I needed someone to talk to, but there was no one left. Then everything exploded.

On her personality:

Once I felt that I was one person at home, and the minute I stepped out the door I had to be somebody else. I had a terrible insecurity, an extreme shyness, that I covered up with coldness. Everybody thought I was a snob. I was really just plain scared...I always used to jump into friendships and give too much. You can't do that. You end up like Grand Central Station with people just coming and going. And there you are, left behind...Sometimes I wonder if being an actress is really going to be enough for me. When you're sixteen, being in show business is a very romantic notion. You dream about your pictures all over the magazines. But what you think at sixteen and what you think at twenty-nine are two different things. If I took a test, I would probably find I'm in the wrong field.

In his biography of Inger, Patterson wrote that Inger, upon learning a new word, would write the word and its definition on an index card. On the back, she would use it in a sentence. On an index card for the word 'indomitable', Inger wrote:

Inger is indomitable because of her courage and her pride.

The Oxford English Dictionary (personal sidenote: Hi, Chuck!) defines 'indomitable' as:

1. That cannot be tamed; untameable.

2. Of persons, etc.: That cannot be overcome or subdued by labour, difficulties, or opposition; unyielding; stubbornly persistent or resolute.

From her earliest days in America, attempts were made to tame Inger. A father and stepmother, both possessing more force than love, started the trend of Inger's life. That disapproving look Inger saw in her father's eyes quickly transferred to the eyes of her first husband who, too, wanted her to bend to his rule. Then came studio executives whose attempts to silence a stubbornly vocal Inger—and her independent views on Hollywood—continued for the rest of her life. In spite of this resistance—not to mention the lovers who let her down along the way—Inger took a firm stance. She remained that wonderfully unique girl named Inger Stensland. 

Just two weeks before her 1959 suicide attempt, Inger told a reporter, "I just don't want to be a second anybody, only myself." At that time, another reporter in Allentown, Pennsylvania had the pleasure of meeting with Inger and wrote:

Young and pretty, and undoubtedly talented, Miss Stevens has a lot more and that is an innate intelligence that makes her a very interesting conversationalist. There was none of the vapid, trite remarks—inspired by the press agent—which so frequently provide so small a gamut of conversation with actresses and actors. Miss Stevens has very definite ideas on many things and is most convincing, too. 

In a 1963 article "Inger Stevens' Dim View of Stardom and Gold," Inger criticized stars saying they "do everything for the mythical career." She elaborated:

Some people sacrifice everything to get on top of the heap. They sacrifice friendship, their own individuality, and become a slave to a career...Why kill yourself and your identity reaching for something that's not there? It's not going to make you more accepted.

As the 1960's progressed, Hollywood higher-ups maintained their efforts to keep the unyielding Inger down and columnists relentlessly pursued her in an attempt to expose a life she intended to keep private. Still, Inger, through her intelligence and generosity, made large contributions to society throughout her life and continues to impact us today. I cannot think of a person more worthy of being called indomitable.

Sources: 

Finnigan, Joseph. "Inger Stevens' Dim View of Stardom and Gold." Press and Sun-Bulletin. November 24, 1963.

"Indomitable." The Oxford English Dictionary. Second Edition. Clarendon Press, 1989.

Kohl, John Y. "The Curtain Rises." The Morning Call. December 21, 1958.

Lewis, Richard Warren. "TV's Farmer's Daughter has battled death, fickle suitors, and self-doubts." Saturday Evening Post. January 4-11, 1964.

Mendlowitz, Leonard. "Wants to Be Self." Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph. December 16, 1958.

Patterson, William. The Farmer's Daughter Remembered. 2000.

Inger on Katy and Men

Inger was a gifted singer and musician, as seen
here in this photo that accompanied the article.

In a TV-Radio Mirror interview with the cast of The Farmer's Daughter, Inger shared her thoughts on the character she played and the enjoyment among the cast on set. Inger said:

The odd thing is I've learned so much about myself since I started playing Katy. We're so much alike. We've both grown this past year. And, just like Katy, I'm much more relaxed that I've ever been. Perhaps it's the success of the series, but I'm not having fits over my career anymore. I look at it more objectively. I realize there are more important things in this world than acting. Hollywood may be the center of my life at present, but let's face it: It's a dot on the map, considering the world at large.

Another point. My sense of humor has sharpened up since I became Katy. Either I've gotten more "hep" or else it's because of associating with Bill Windom, Cathleen Nesbitt and Peter Kortner, all of whom have keen senses of humor. This is so important in a running series like ours. When things go wrong on the set—and believe me, even the smoothest show has its bad days—we can always find something to laugh about. Suddenly the gloom evaporates. Thank Heaven for that! It must be murder to work with grouchy people you don't like.

I think the feeling of warm friendliness somehow carries over to the viewers. I get loads of letters asking whether Bill and I are really in love, "because it sure looks that way on the screen." Naturally, we're flattered that our acting is so convincing, but we certainly aren't in love. Bill, as a matter of fact, has a lovely wife and three children. He also has many qualities I admire.

Inger also talked about what type of man attracted her. Inger's statements about finding the perfect man to journalists during the 1960's are always interesting to read. We know now that Inger had already found a man named Isaac Jones and was married to him, but that fact was oblivious to all but Inger's close circle at the time. The most revealing part to me is when Inger says, "I honestly believe I could handle both a home life and a career. In a sense, I'm doing that now." Yes, she definitely was and more than "in a sense!"

It's so easy, you know, to get romantic about your leading man. You're both playing people in love with each other, and you have a tendency to start living the part. It happened to me in my first years in Hollywood. The men were single, unattached and attractive, in all but two cases, and these two might as well have been bachelors for all the loyalty they showed their wives. Both were later on caught up in scandals, and I now realize how lucky I was not to take them seriously.

I like the more mature type of man, and I draw no line with respect to age. I was married once before—to a Broadway agent Tony Soglio—but it lasted on six months. I was only nineteen at the time and had very immature expectations. I realize now that no man could have lived up to my standards at that time. It's taken me ten years to grow up as a woman. I feel sure now that I'm at last ready for marriage. I honestly believe I could handle both a home life and a career. In a sense, I'm doing that now.

I'd like to feel secure and confident that I was joining my life to the right man's. The right man? Well, he'll have to have these two qualities that are a must for me. They are a good sense of humor and the ability to respect me as a person and win my respect, at the same time.

Source:

Emmons, Beatrice. Inger Stevens: The Man Who Stopped My Wedding." TV-Radio Mirror. January 1965

The Lady's a Loner and Likes It

In 1967 reporter Jack Ryan met with Inger Stevens in a bar in Utah, where she was shooting the film Firecreek. Inger was playing pool with the locals and holding her own in the game before she sat down to talk with Ryan about her tendency to live a life of solitude. Ryan wrote that "Inger smiles gently and speaks softly so that her ideas don't sound as harsh as they read...Inger's steely self-possession seems far less total, and you wonder whether it may be a thin shield rather than a complete attitude." Here is what Inger shared about her life in the interview:

On being a dancer:

At 16 I ran away to join burlesque. I never thought of it being bad, so, because I didn't think bad, nothing that happened to me was bad. I remember being asked to care for a drunken performer, sick and helpless. People said, "disgusting and shocking." I thought only that he was a sick man; nothing shocked or disgusted me because I could see nothing bad in the world.

On being frugal in spending:

I have no status symbols. Oh, I tore up some rosebushes at home for a sauna bath and pool, but I use them every morning, not just look at them. My Mercedes? Well, I squeezed the dealer down $500 from his bottom price, and my cars last me seven or eight years, so they are hardly luxuries. 

About her 2-year marriage to agent Anthony Soglio in the 1950's:

All I wish to say is that it left a lasting impression on me.

On her nearly 3-year battle with Paramount over her contract which ended with Inger going in debt to pay off contracts made by her former husband Anthony Soglio:

It was a nightmare but when it was over, I was a free woman in every sense of the word. I no longer needed anyone. I could laugh at problems that once would have made me so moody that I'd be afraid to be by myself. Now I'm alone a lot. People ask me if I'm lonely. I tell them I have my own small home, and I like its solitude. I have my own Mercedes to take long drives—alone. 

On traveling:

My favorite pastime is travel by slow freighters to strange ports—again alone. Am I afraid? Never—well, yes, once I was frightened off from visiting Marrakesh, but maybe I'll still visit it to see for myself. I'm planning freighter voyages to the Orient and the Greek Islands. It's better to travel alone unless you are with somebody very much a part of you, and there's nobody like that in my life. Yes, I'll do that soon. The Greek Islands? No, I'm saving them for my man, whenever I meet him. I'm not so independent to rule out marriage, but he'll have to be somebody you can think and communicate with. I want a marriage we can grow in. When I meet this man—then I'll sail the Greek Islands with him. Until then, I'm saving them. [When Ryan asked "what if he doesn't want to go to the Greek Islands?", Inger smiled and replied, "He will. He will."]

We know now that Inger was actually secretly married to producer Ike Jones from 1961 until her death. That marriage, kept secret because it was interracial and would've destroyed Inger's career at the time, was marked with a lot of separations in living arrangements and romantic arrangements and has been described as tumultuous by some. Knowing that Inger and Ike continued to be romantically involved with others and spent much of their marriage estranged, I don't know if Ike was the man she says she's holding out for in the interview. Perhaps, the smiling reply "He will. He will." was a sweet, secret acknowledgment to Ike of their future plans. I have wondered if interviews about her not being married include words or phrases that might not mean anything to the reporter or the public, but were a secret code between Ike and Inger...just my own speculations here. Interestingly, in Ike's obituary, it actually has a small quote about the two traveling. Friend and producer Bob Booker remarked:

They would to go the airport, walk up to the counter and say, ‘When’s the next flight and where is it going?’. They would disappear for a week.

I do believe that Inger was a loner throughout her adult life and enjoyed her solitude; she was conditioned to be independent after a traumatic childhood and I think she felt better protected on her own and in control. I'm always pleased to find interviews of hers; I know she is guarding some truths,  but she's shedding a good deal of light on her life as well.

Source:
Colker, David. "Ike Jones dies at 84; pioneering African American film producer." Los Angeles Times. October 11, 2014.
Ryan, Jack. "The Lady's a Loner and Likes It." The Kilgore News Herald Sun. August 27, 1967.