Toralv Maurstad

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Toralv Maurstad (born November 24, 1926 in Bærum, Norway) is a prominent actor of Norwegian stage, screen and television. By many regarded as the leading Norwegian actor of his generation, he is the son of the late Alfred Maurstad, another highly popular actor.

Maurstad graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London in 1949. Through the years he has not only worked as a leading actor but is also a respected stage director, and was the head of Oslo Nye Teater (Oslo New Theatre) from 1967 to 1978 and most notably the head of Norway's National Theatre Nationaltheatret from 1978 to 1986. He is considered perhaps the greatest interpreter of Henrik Ibsen's 'Peer Gynt, having played the part numerous times (he even performed excerpts from the play as late as the 2002 Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City).

His only American film appearance (so far) was starring in the 1970 box office and critical disaster Song of Norway, a film musical about the life of composer Edvard Grieg (his co-star was Florence Henderson). It was based on a successful, but now semi-forgotten, 1944 Broadway show. So complete was the film's failure that today American audiences are still completely unaware of Maurstad's high standing in Norwegian classical and modern theatre.

A testament to his position in Norwegian theatre came when in the 1970s he co-starred with Liv Ullmann in a critically acclaimed Broadway-staging of Ibsen's A Doll's House in New York.

In 1974 the King of Norway made him a Knight, First Class of the Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav.