Emilie Högquist

Emilie Högquist (1812-1846) was a Swedish actress and the mistress of Oscar I of Sweden. She was the daughter of Anders Högquist and Anna Beata Hedvall. Her brother Jean also became a famous Swedish actor. She was the most celebrated female artiste in Sweden in the 1840s, and the most talked about courtesan.

Biography

Emilie Högqvist's childhood is considered quite tragic, as she was early exploited by her parents. As her father was employed, (as a butler) by count Carl De Geer, she was soon exposed to men from the upper classes. Her mother was the hostess for the ill-reputed "Balls" held to introduce the female students from Dramatens elevskola to rich men. Emilie, like her elder sister Hanna, was placed in Dramatens elevskola in 1821 by her mother, acted as a child actor in the child-theatre Selinderska Barntheatern, and, at the age of fourteen, "introduced" to a rich old man by her mother.

In 1826-1828 she was a part of a travelling theatre company touring the country, and when she returned, she was accepted as a student-actor at the Royal Theatre ( [http://www.dramaten.se/ Sw. Kungliga teatern] ) in Stockholm, making her debut in the play "Qväkaren" in 1828, and being employed there from 1831. Her younger brother, Jean Högquist, (1814-1850) had followed her as an actor, and was considered of great promise also, but his self-destructive way of life made him impossible for the theatre, and Emilie sent him to America. Jean was very close to his sister; he returned in 1846, and when Emilie died later the same year, he became so self-destructive that he died only four years later.

Her career began to flourish after the great strike called "the second Torsslow argument" in 1834, when the celebrated actress Sara Torsslow left the theatre with her husband. Torsslow had been the most notable "sentimental actress" and comic up till then, and when she left, the theatre had to find a replacement for such roles. They were first given to Charlotta Eriksson, but Eriksson, a star within more solemn, cold, sensitive parts was not suited for sentimental and emotional roles. Therefore, Emilie Högvist was given her chance and immediately excelled. She was received with great enthusiasm in these roles and took over the audience for Torsslow as well as gaining great admiration of her own. Her salary can illustrate her rise in career. In 1835, Emilie Högquist had a vagues of 1.200. As a comparison, the primadonna Henriette Widerberg had a salary of 1.600, and the lowest salary of an actress was 200.

She was the most celebrated Swedish primadonna of her time, called the Swedish Aspasia; few other dramatic actresses in Sweden before her had enjoyed her popularity and success. Emilie Högquist is often compared to the opera singer Henriette Widerberg, as their lives, personalities and careers were much alike, and she was also to replace Widerberg in many ways and become her successor, though she is regarded as much more gifted artistically then Widerberg, who was an excellent singer but more talked about for her beauty.

Her talent was demonstrated through romantic and comical parts; she was very appreciated in so-called French salon-comedies, a very popular genre. Her weakness at the beginning of her career was that her voice was very weak; she herself admitted she had the "voice of a chicken", but she made the most of it. [ Carin Österberg, "Svenska Kvinnor" Svicon] She was helped with this problem after a student trip to Paris 1836-1837, where she was instructed by the French actress Mademoiselle Mars, and when she returned, she was received as an ideal of grace and taste and her earlier "chicken-voice" was replaced by a voice that "caressed the ear". She acted in "Qväkaren och dansaren", "Shakspears Kär", Jungfrun av Orleans", "Maria Stuart" and "Hamlet" and had 125 roles in her repertoire. She also toured in Finland.

After having a daughter with British diplomat John Bloomfield, Emilie made the acquaintance of Oscar, who was at that time heir to the throne. He rented a luxury apartment for her and in time set up a second family with her, close to the royal castle where his queen and legitimate children lived. It is said that the king spent every other night at the castle and every other night with Emilie. With Oscar, Emilie had two sons, Hjalmar and Max. Max was named after Maximilian de Beauharnais, Oscar's brother-in-law (and consequently the queen's brother). The two boys were jokingly referred to as "the princes of Laponia" (Lappland). Max grew up to become a merchant in China, where he died in 1872. Hjalmar died in 1874 in London.

Emilies apartment was known for its "Asian luxury", she was a celebrated hostess and held a salon that were quite famous, counting artists and men of important positions among her dinner guests, though it was never visited by female members of the upper classes because of her reputation as a high class courtesan. During her grand days as a star in the 1840s, she also did a lot of charity work to ease poverty. Her health, however, worsened during these years. In the theatre, her place was taken over by Zelma Hedin.

Emilie died in Turin, Italy, where she had gone to try to cure her ailments, probably tuberculosis and cancer. She was one of the three well-known Swedish artistes who were celebrated in a memorial in 1847.

Children

With John Bloomfield:
*Tekla, born October 1833

With Oscar I:
*Hjalmar Högquist born 18 June 1839 in Hamburg.
*Max Högquist born 12 August 1840 in Stockholm.

See also

* Elise Jakobsson-Hwasser
* Henriette Widerberg
* Charlotte Eckerman

References

* http://runeberg.org/sqvinnor/0223.html
* http://historiska-personer.nu/min-s/p1b49fc03.html
* Georg Nordensvan, "Svensk teater och svenska skådespelare från Gustav III till våra dagar; Första bandet, 1772-1842"
* http://runeberg.org/nfbh/0175.html