Her high-profile social life, her 1964 marriage to actor Peter Sellers, and her relationship with singer Rod Stewart attracted considerable press attention, making her one of the world's most photographed celebrities during the 1970s.
Early life
Ekland was born Britt-Marie Eklund in Stockholm, Sweden[2] to Maj Britt, a secretary, and Sven Eklund, who ran an upmarket clothing store in Stockholm and was captain of the Swedish national curling team, four-time national champion and one-time president of the World Curling Federation.[1][3] Ekland's mother died of Alzheimer's disease in the 1980s, which had a profound effect on her.[4]
Ekland grew up with three younger brothers, and has said that she was overweight for much of her childhood: "I was very heavy. God, I was brutal-looking. I always tried to be funny to make up for the fact that I was fat and ugly".[3] As a teenager, Ekland left school to travel with a theatre company and was spotted in a coffee shop in Italy by a talent agent who sent her to London to audition for films.[3]
Ekland had small roles in the Swedish films Kort är sommaren (1962) and Det är hos mig han har varit (1963), before landing her first major supporting part in the George Marshall Western Advance to the Rear (1964).
In the same year Ekland was originally cast in the dramatic role of Karen Eriksson in the British film Guns at Batasi starring Richard Attenborough, Jack Hawkins, Flora Robson, and sixties heartthrob actor/singer John Leyton. However she left the Pinewood production after only three weeks into filming due to tension with her new husband Peter Sellers,[5] who was apparently so paranoid about Ekland having an affair with Leyton he secretly asked his old acting friends, David Lodge and Graham Stark who were co-starring in the picture, to keep an eye on her.[6] After being quizzed nightly on the telephone by Sellers about her scenes and who she was with, Ekland left the shoot to join Sellers in Los Angeles.[6] Ekland has said that Sellers insisted that she leave the set, come to America, then claim that an illness prevented her from returning.[7] Her role was quickly recast and completed by Mia Farrow.[8][9] In response 20th Century Fox sued Ekland for $1.5 million; Sellers counter-sued for $4 million claiming the Fox suit caused him "mental distress and injury to his health".[10]
In 1971 she was cast as a leading lady and gun moll in the crime film Get Carter, opposite Michael Caine, which firmly established her as a blonde bombshell. The 1970s also saw Ekland in several horror films, including What the Peeper Saw (1972) as a disturbed bride; the Agatha Christie adaptation Endless Night (1972), playing the friend and companion of an American heiress; and as a hallucinatory figure in the anthology film Asylum (1972) opposite Charlotte Rampling. Her best known
horror role came in 1973s The Wicker Man, in which she played a Pagan villager and seductress; however, her voice was dubbed in the film to disguise her Swedish-accented English.[12]
In 1978 she hosted a syndicated television series for American International Television called "Jukebox." Directed by Bruce Gowers and produced and written by Paul Flattery for Jon Roseman Productions, the series featured then-nascent music videos, most of which were originally produced by Roseman's companies in the United States and England.
She has guest-starred on various television series, including an appearance on the popular TV series Superboy, playing an alien disguised as Lara, Superboy's biological mother, during the show's second season in 1990. Ekland published a beauty and fitness book, Sensual Beauty: How to Achieve It (1984), followed by a fitness video in 1992. In the BBC television series I Love the '70s (1999), she hosted the 1971 episode in homage to her role in the film Get Carter.
In 2010 Ekland took part in the reality TV showI'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!, where she was the fourth celebrity to be voted off the show. Ekland was one of the housewives of Svenska Hollywoodfruar (English: Swedish Hollywood Wives) on TV3 from 2012 to 2014. In 2018 she participated in Let's Dance broadcast on TV4. She was the first to be eliminated on 30 March, placing 11th.
Ekland became famous overnight as a result of her 1964 whirlwind romance and marriage to English actor and comedian Peter Sellers, who proposed after seeing her photograph in the paper and then meeting her in London.[19][20] She stood by him after he suffered a series of heart attacks shortly after their marriage. Ekland was stepmother to Sellers's children Sarah and Michael (who died of a heart attack at about the same age as his father). In January 1965 they had a daughter, Victoria. The couple made three films together, A Carol for Another Christmas (1964), After the Fox (1966), and The Bobo (1967), before divorcing in 1968.[21]
On 17 December 1968, Mr Justice Alan Orr granted Ekland a decree nisi for divorce in the High Court on the grounds of cruelty by Sellers, who did not contest the proceedings.[21]
In June 1973, Ekland had a son, Nicolai Adler, with record producer Lou Adler.[22]
She also had a much publicised romance with rock star Rod Stewart. They were introduced in 1975 by Joan Collins and lived together for more than two years, with Ekland giving up her career to focus on their relationship.[23]
^Sikov, Ed (2002). Mr. Strangelove: a biography of Peter Sellers. Pan MacMillan. ISBN0-283-07297-0.
^ ab"Actor Peter Sellers Regretted That His Marriage To Britt Ekland Had Broken Down, A Divorce Court Judge Was Told Today", Associated Newspapers news release dated 17 December 1968.
