TAINA ELG

Taina Elg was a famous Finnish actress and ballet dancer.

She was born in 1930 in Impilahti but because of the Finland-Russian war her family moved to Turku, a city near Helsinki.

Her Mother was a Russian pianist and her Father was a pianist too.

During her childhood she studied ballet and acting. Later, she was invited to dance with the Finnish National Ballet. During this time she participated in a few homeland movies.

She was famous after joining to the Sadler´s Wellas dance company, (at present the Royal Ballet), in London and the Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas in Paris. After a serious injury she signed a Hollywood contract for seven years with MGM.

Taina debuted with a secondary role in the film The Prodigal in 1955. In 1956 she acted in the film Gaby and for this work she was honoured with a Golden Globe for the Foreign Newcomer Award - Female. In 1957 she participated in her best film Les Girls whit Gene Kelly. For this work she received her second Golden Globe for “Best Actress” in a musical.

Her next films were not as successful. Some of them were The 39 steps, Watusi - in Spain Retorno a las minas del Rey Salomón - Hercules in New York…

In the 1960s Taina began to act in musical theatre in productions such as The Sound of Music, West Side Story … Later, she debuted in Broadway with the musical Look to the Lilies and participated in more productions such as Nine, Cabaret, There´s a Girl in my Soup, Where’s Charley, for which she earned a Tony nomination.

In 1974 she participated in the first international representation of the musical A little Night Music, in Sidney, where she sang the famous “Send in the Clowns” as well participating in the National tour of the musical Titanic.

In non-musical theatre she had strong roles in I Hate Hamlet, Requiem for William , Memory of summer, O Pioneers, Uncle Vanya … She also participated in TV projects such as the ABC soap opera One Life to Live.

In 2004 she was knight by the “Order of the Lion of Finland”, a special honour from in Finland. Taina Elg died in 2008

Vicente Bibián

English for Fun 4A