Brita Borg (10 June 1926 – 4 May 2010), full name Brita Kerstin Gunvor Borg, was a Swedish singer, actress, and variety show artist. Her variety show career spanned from 1943 into the 1970s, while her singing career trailed away at the end of the 1960s. However, she was still an active actress in the 1980s. Borg represented Sweden in the Eurovision Song Contest 1959 in Cannes.

Biography

Borg was born on Södermalm in Stockholm and began her career in the Södermalm-based variety show group Vårat gäng ("Our Gang") after having won a song competition organised by the magazine Vecko-Revyn in 1943. In 1945, she formed the quartet Flickery Flies with Allan Johansson, whom she later married. In 1947, she began her long collaboration with famous Swedish variety performer and writer Povel Ramel. She participated in his radio program Fyra kring en flygel ("Four around a grand piano") and was the prima donna of several versions of the Knäppupp variety show between 1952 and 1962.

Amongst her most famous numbers were Fat Mammy Brown, where she played an African-American jazz/gospel singer in blackface and fat padding, the tango Banne mej from the variety musical Funny Boy, where she played the seductive Gypsy girl Zamora, and Ulliga krulliga gubbar, a satirical Dixieland ballad about the fashionableness of beards. When the prolific comedy duo Hans Alfredson and Tage Danielsson were writing for Knäppupp they provided her with songs such as Alla kan ju inte älska alla här i världen ("Everyone can't love everyone"), Aldrig har jag sett en rak banana ("I've Never Seen a Straight Banana"), and Du är min tekopp ("You are my teacup"). In 1962, she reached the peak of her career as a variety show artist with the number Die Borg, parodying Swedish singers who made a career by catering to German audiences.

From 1964 onwards Borg performed in several variety shows with Hagge Geigert in Uddevalla and Gothenburg, and a sojourn at Folkan with Kar de Mumma. In the 1970s, she moved to Arvidsjaur with her new husband, policeman Stig Salomonsson, and thereafter was most active as an actress, most often for Riksteatern. She played in the musical Call Me Madam in 1967, and gave a celebrated performance as Annie Oakley in the musical Annie Get Your Gun in 1973. Henceforth she toured with Riksteatern in performances of Christina Alexandra, Fiddler on the Roof, Ramel riket runt, and The Threepenny Opera. Among her more important dramatic performances was her turn alongside Halvar Björk in Richard Hobert's televised play Polskan och puckelryggen from 1983.