Was originally offered the role of Princess Dragonmiroff in Murder on the Orient Express (1974). She later ended up playing Greta Ohlsson which won her an Oscar. Virtually all of her Oscar-winning performance is contained in a single scene: her interrogation by Poirot, captured in a single continuous take, nearly five minutes long.
Was portrayed by daughter Isabella Rossellini in her tribute to her father, famed Italian director Roberto Rossellini, in My Dad Is 100 Years Old (2005).
Was ranked fifth in the list of Best Classic Actress online poll chosen by the 12,000 readers of EW magazine, behind Katharine Hepburn, Audrey Hepburn, Bette Davis and Marilyn Monroe.
Was the first choice to play Terry McKay in An Affair to Remember (1957).
When David O. Selznick told his prospective new 23-year-old star that they would have to change her name, cap her teeth and pluck her eyebrows, she threatened to return to Sweden.
When Ernest Hemingway told her she would have to cut off her hair for the role of Maria in For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943), she shot back, "To get that part, I'd cut my head off!" She would rehearse tirelessly until any hour of the night, begging to repeat a scene long after the director was satisfied.
Won Broadway's 1947 Tony Award as Best Actress (Dramatic) for "Joan of Lorraine" - an award shared with Helen Hayes. They would later co-star in Anastasia (1956), for which she won her second Oscar.