Sæbjørn Buttedahl (10 November 1876 – 10 July 1960) was a Norwegian stage and film actor who later found prominence as a sculptor.

Stage and film career

Nils Sæbjørn Buttedahl was born in

Lier, Norway Lier is a municipality in Viken county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Lierbyen. The municipality of Lier was established on 1 January 1838 (see formannskapsdistrikt). The area Åssiden was transferred ...

and began his career as a stage actor in 1896 at the age of twenty. From 1907 to 1924 he was engaged at the

Centralteatret Centralteatret ( en, Central Theater) is a theatre on Akersgata in the city centre of Oslo, Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western ...

(Central Theater) in

Oslo Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of ...

(then known as Kristiana).Norsk Kunstnerleksikon
(in Norwegian) He appeared in a number of stage plays by

Henrik Ibsen Henrik Johan Ibsen (; ; 20 March 1828 – 23 May 1906) was a Norwegian playwright and theatre director. As one of the founders of modernism in theatre, Ibsen is often referred to as "the father of realism" and one of the most influential playw ...

, and appeared onstage with such eminent Norwegian actors of the era as

Agnes Mowinckel Agnes Mowinckel (25 August 1875 – 1 April 1963) was a Norwegian actress and theatre director. Born in Bergen into a distinguished family, she became Norway's first professional stage director. A pioneer in bringing painters to the theatre, she ...

and Martin Linge. Buttedahl appeared in three feature-length

silent film A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) or key lines of dialogue may, when ...

s during his career as an actor. Two of these films, 1926's ''Simen Mustrøens besynderlige opplevelser'' and 1927's ''

Den glade enke i Trangvik ''Den glade enke i Trangvik'' (English: ''The Merry Widow of Trangvik'') is a 1927 Norwegian silent drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than ...

'' were directed by Harry Ivarson. His final film role was in the 1927 romantic drama ''

Fjeldeventyret ''Fjeldeventyret'' (The Mountain Story) is a Norwegian film from 1927 based on Henrik Anker Bjerregaard's play of the same name from 1824. The film is a romantic drama. It was directed by Leif Sinding. Plot Mons Østmoe wants to move up in the ...

'' (A Mountain Romance), directed by his son-in-law

Leif Sinding Leif Sinding (19 November 1895 – 13 May 1985) was a Norwegian film director and journalist. He worked for the newspapers ''Verdens Gang'', ''Aftenposten'', and ''Morgenbladet''. Among his silent films are ''Himmeluret'' from 1925, based on G ...

Sculpture

During his time as an actor, Buttedahl also began a career as a sculptor, mainly as a sculptor of busts and almost exclusively sculpted notable theater personalities. He debuted his work at the Autumn Exhibition in Oslo in 1912. Notable works in the public collection include: * Nationaltheatret (National Theater), Oslo: busts of Jens Selmer (marble) and

Ingolf Schanche Ingolf Findregaard Schanche (13 June 1877 – 15 April 1954) was a Norwegian actor and theatre director. He spent most of his career at Nationaltheatret in Oslo, and was also the first artistic director at Det Nye Teater. Personal life Schan ...

(bronze, 1921) * Vestre gravlund (Western Cemetery), Oslo: bust of Fredrik Wilhelm Wingar (bronze, 1923) *Oslo Theatre Museum, Oslo: busts of Kaja Eide Norena, Ingolf Schanche and Halvor Urdahl *Copenhagen Theater Museum,

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...

: bust of Peter Fjelstrup (alabaster, 1913) * Oslo Bymuseum (Oslo City Museum), Oslo: busts of Jens Selmer (alabaster) and Ole Thommessen (alabaster) *Drammens Faste Galleri (Drammen Fixed Gallery), Drammen: bust of

Harald Otto Harald Otto (January 24, 1865 – May 13, 1928) was a Norwegian actor and theater director. Otto was born in Nes, Norway, the son of the stationmaster Hans Otto Hansen (1815–?) and Maren Paulsen (1832–?). He moved to the United States in 188 ...

(alabaster, 1914)

Personal life

Sæbjørn Buttedahl married Danish stage actress Clare Petrea Margrethe "Maggie" Benelli (1870–1933). They had one daughter, Ellen (Buttedahl) Sinding (1899–1980), who married film director Leif Sinding and became a film actress and dancer.

Later life

In 1926, Buttedahl emigrated to the United States, where he toured the country with appearances reciting poems and singing folk songs. He settled in San Diego, California, where he died in 1960 at age 83.

References

External links

* * 1876 births 1960 deaths Norwegian male stage actors Norwegian male film actors Norwegian male silent film actors People from Lier, Norway People from Drammen Norwegian emigrants to the United States 19th-century Norwegian male actors 20th-century Norwegian male actors 20th-century Norwegian sculptors {{Norway-sculptor-stub