Kyllikki Forssell was a leading Finnish stage and film actress, with a career spanning over 60 years from the mid-20th to the early 21st century and film director.
Kyllikki Forssell (2 May 1925 — 7 October 2019) was a leading Finnish stage and film actress, with a career spanning over 60 years from the mid-20th to the early 21st century and film director.
She was one of the first four Finnish women film directors.
Early life and education
Kyllikki Forssell was born in Helsinki to cavalry Colonel Juho Forssell and Kyllikki Nyman-Linnove. She had a strict, military-style upbringing, with her mother insisting — despite the family being Finnish-speaking — on speaking French to her daughter.
She received her education in Finnish, Swedish and German, completing her secondary school in 1943, and went on, against the wishes of her anti-thespian father, to study acting at the Suomi-Filmi cinematic school (1943–44) and the Swedish Theatre stage school (1944–46).
