Brita Borg

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Brita Kerstin Gunvor Borg, born June 10 1926 in Stockholm, is a singer, actress and variety-show artist. Borg was born on Södermalm in Stockholm and began her carrier in the Södermalm-based variety show group Vårat gäng ("Our Gang") after having won a song competition which the magazine Vecko Revyn organised in 1943. In 1945 she formed the quartet Flickery Flies with Allan Johansson, whom she later married. In 1947 she began her long collaboration with famous Swedish revue performer Povel Ramel. She participated in his radio program Fyra kring en flygel and was primadonna in a number of the Knäppupp variety shows between 1952 and 1962.

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[edit] Biography

Amongst her most famous numbers were Fat Mammy Brown, where she played an African-American jazz/gospel singer in blackface and fat padding, the tango Banne mej from the variety musical Funny Boy, where she played the seductive Gypsy girl Zamora, and Ulliga krulliga gubbar, a satirical Dixieland ballad about how modern it would have been to have a beard. When the prolific comedy duo Hasse Alfredsson and Tage Danielsson were writing for Knäppupp they provided her with songs such as Alla kan ju inte älska alla här i världen ("Everyone can't love everyone"), Aldrig har jag sett en rak banana ("I've never seen a straight banana") and Du är min tekopp ("You are my teacup"). In 1962 she reached the peak of her career as a variety show artist with the number Die Borg, parodying Swedish singers who made a career by catering to German audiences.

From 1964 Borg performed in several variety shows with Hagge Geigert in Uddevalla and Gothenburg, and a sojourn at Folkan with Kar de Mumma. In the 1970s she moved to Arvidsjaur with her new husband, policeman Stig Salomonsson, and has since then been most active as an actress, most often for Riksteatern. She played in the musical Call Me Madam in 1967, and made a celebrated performance as Annie Oakley in the musical Annie Get Your Gun in 1973. Since then she has toured with Riksteatern in performances of Christina Alexandra, Fiddler on the Roof, Ramel riket runt, and The Threepenny Opera. Among her most important dramatic performances was the performance alongside Halvar Björk in Richard Hobert's televised play Polskan och puckelryggen from 1983.

In the 1950s, Brita Borg was a Swedish pop-queen. She made many recordings, first for Sonora, then for Knäppupp. In 1959 it was decided that whichever song won in the Melodifestivalen she would travel to Cannes to sing in the final of the Eurovision Song Contest. It was Augustin. In 1960 she had fun as Hasse Alfredson’s duet-partner in the comic Oj då kära nån and Märta Melin och Ture Tyrén and was awarded the honour of singing a duet with Evert Taube in two recordings of Invitation till Guatemala and Mary Strand. In 1961 an LP recordings was made where she interpreted Århundradets melodier, including Hässelbysteppen, Min soldat and Sjösala vals. Her genre was traditional pop songs, with the, at the time, common leaning towards Italian (La strada dell’amore, Ciao ciao Bambina). She attempted more modern progression with Frankenstein rock in 1957 but became eventually surpassed by younger, sexier, but less voice-strong singers. Stig Anderson and Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson gave her a last hit with the song Ljuva sextiotal, which stayed in the Swedish charts (Svensktoppen) for 20 weeks in 1969.

[edit] Acting

Borg was musical, humorous and conscientious, but became an actress instead of a pop star. Contradictory to other great Swedish pop stars such as Hanson, Carson och Malmkvist, she hasn’t made a great comeback, or, as Leander and Lindblom, had her pop song recordings re-released in anthologies and CDs. She has barely even become camp or a gay icon, as Git Gay, maybe because she, as a variety show prima donna been self-ironic from the beginning. The self-ironic undertones remained when Vårat gang made a comeback in the 1980s, and she was able to present herself as "En något överårig tonårsidol" (A somewhat too old teenage idol), and in the anniversarial Knäppup show Knäpp igen in 1992, when she sang Vi sätter P för primadonna ("We put the P in Prima Donna").

[edit] Other songs

  • "Tangerine" (1943)
  • "Alla säger att jag ser så ledsen ut" (first Ramel-song 1947)
  • "Jag ska ta morfar med mig ut i kväll" (a big hit 1948)
  • "Sodom och Gomorra"
  • Calypso Italiano" (1957)
  • "Kärlek livet ut" (1957)
  • "Sorglösa brunn" (duet with Ramel)
  • "Ge en fräknig och ful liten flicka en chans"
  • "Regn, regn, regn" (on EP-record "Brita i regnet")
  • "Utsikt från en bro" (beautiful lyrics by Karl Gerhard about a waiting sailor’s wife)
  • "Gotländsk sommarnatt"
  • "Frysboxcalypso" (add for Elektro-Helios on a rare EP with Alfredson)
  • "Res med mig till Skottland!"
  • "Ett rent undantag" (a small, comedic variety show song which to Ramel’s disappointment didn’t become a hit)
  • "Jan Öivind Swahn" (B-side to Ljuva sextiotal)
  • "Die Borg" (from knäppupprevyn Dax igen)

[edit] Filmography

  • 1959 - Rymdinvasion i Lappland
  • 1958 - Den store amatören
  • 1954 - I rök och dans
  • 1953 - I dur och skur
  • 1953 - I dimma dold
  • 1951 - Dårskapens hus
  • 1949 - Med flyg till sjunde himlen
  • 1949 - Gatan
  • 1948 - Lilla Märta kommer tillbaka
  • 1940 - Swing it, magistern!