Vintage Swedish postcard. S. Almquist, Helsingborg. Caption: My fancy is, well, here...
Ernst Ragnar Rolf, originally Johansson, born 20 January 1891 in Falun, died 25 December 1932 in Stockholm, was a Swedish singer, actor and revue king. During the interwar period, Rolf was one of the great personalities in Swedish entertainment theatre. He also acted in four films.
Ernst Ragnar Johansson was born in Falun. His father Klas Albert Johanson was a tailor and the family lived on a small farm in Elsborg, near the Falun copper mine. Rolf was a musical child and often performed at IOGT ((Independent Order of Good Templars) together with his older brother Birger, who played the piano. After attending school in Västerås, he was employed by ASEA (Allmänna Svenska Elektriska Aktiebolaget ) there. In the autumn of 1906, he started working at the mail order company Åhlén & Holm in Insjön. Here he became acquainted with the printing manager Ragnar Åkerblom, who wrote local reviews and performed as a country comedian. Ragnar Johansson and Ragnar Åkerblom later became partners in the artist duo Hammarlund & Schröder.
The following year, 1907, he left Åhlén & Holm and began touring as an actor and singer. In 1908 he was employed as an actor by Axel Engdahl in Gothenburg, and after a short time there he moved to Axel Hultman, where he changed his surname to Rolf. He was then associated with a number of different companies and toured both in Sweden and the rest of the Nordic countries as a dome singer. 1913 he performed at Berns in Stockholm, 1917-1918 he was the leading name at Fenixkabarén there. From 1921 he performed his own revues at various Stockholm theatres. At the same time as acting, he performed as a singer of peasant and military songs. Ernst Rolf had a knack for finding melodies that stuck in people's minds. Many of our most commonly sung songs come from the Ernst Rolf revues. These include Ju mer vi är tillsammans ... and Jag är ute när gumman min är inne. In 1915 he founded Ernst Rolf's music publishing company, which later became a limited company.
Among those who wrote lyrics for Ernst Rolf are the pseudonyms Fritz-Gustaf, Herr Dardanell, Berco, Nils-Georg, Gösta Stevens and Dix Dennie. Rolf made his recording debut on 12 October 1910 with three titles on the Gramophone label, which was a predecessor of His Master's Voice. He became one of the most prolific gramophone artists of his time. According to a discography published in 1991, he made a total of 851 recordings. In the latter part of his career, he was exclusively associated with the major label Odeon. On 1 January 1924, the revue Lyckolandet premiered at the Oscar Theatre. According to NE, it represented a completely new form of theatre for Sweden, mixing cabaret with American shows.
In addition to his revues, Rolf appeared in four films: first the two silent comedies Åh, i morron kväll/ Oh, tomorrow night (1919) by John W. Brunius, also with Mary Gräber and Erik Lindholm, and Styrman Karlssons flammor/ Steersman Karlsson's flirts (Gustaf Edgren, 1925), an adaptation of a popular stage comedy, in which he had the lead as an adventurer at sea. In 1930 Rolf went to Hollywood to act a small part in the Scandinavian version of the early sound compilation film Paramount on Parade (Dorothy Arzner et.al., 1930). He last acted in a supporting part as a cheerleader in the Swedish film comedy Hans livs match (Per-Axel Branner, 1932), starring Björn Berglund. Rolf's acting talent was limited, however, and the film did not allow him to use the ability to connect directly with the audience that was one of his great stage talents. Rolf was also a businessman, running his own music publishing company and two short-lived record labels: Rolf Winner Succès (1918-20) and Rolf Succés (1919-20).
Ernst Rolf was married three times. In 1916 he married the Norwegian general's daughter Margit Strugstad and with her he had two children, Sven-Erik Rolf in 1917 and Ann-Mari in 1919 (died 2005). This marriage was dissolved in 1924. Ann-Mari Strugstad Rolf was married to Norwegian filmmaker Per Høst from 1951 to 1960. Rolf married for the second time in 1924 to costume designer Gueye Rolf, daughter of a music professor. Together they had a son, Lars Rolf, in 1923, and the marriage was dissolved in 1927. Rolf married for the third time in 1930 to the actress Tutta Rolf and they had a son, Tom Rolf (1931-2014), who became a film editor in Hollywood, e.g. co-editing Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver and Philip's Kaufman's The Right Stuff - Rolf and his team received an Oscar for the latter.
Ernst Rolf was moody and ill health often forced him to spend long periods of inactivity. Rolf died on Christmas Day 1932, of pneumonia contracted after throwing himself into the lake. Before that, he had tried or threatened to commit suicide on several occasions. The question of whether Ernst Rolf's death should be considered a suicide became a dispute between Tutta Rolf and the insurance company Svenska Lif, which went all the way to the Supreme Court. The majority of the Supreme Court found that Rolf's death should not be considered a suicide because he did not intend to die in the way he did, while the minority felt that his deliberate risk-taking still meant that it should be considered a suicide.
Sources: Swedish Wikipedia, IMDb.
