Monica Zetterlund

Career

Zetterlund began by learning classic jazz songs from radio and records, initially not knowing the language and what they sang about in English. Her hit songs included "Sakta vi gå genom stan" (a Swedish cover of "Walking My Baby Back Home"), "Visa från Utanmyra", "Sista jäntan", "Trubbel", "Gröna små äpplen" ("Little Green Apples"), "Monicas vals" ("Waltz for Debby"), "Stick iväg, Jack!" ("Hit the Road Jack"), "Att angöra en brygga", "Var blev ni av", "Måne över Stureplan" (a cover of Sting's "Moon Over Bourbon Street"), and "Under vinrankan!", among many others.

She also interpreted the works of Swedish singer-songwriters like Evert Taube, Olle Adolphson, and Povel Ramel, as well as international jazz musicians. She worked with leading American players including Louis Armstrong, Bill Evans, Stan Getz, Steve Kuhn, and Quincy Jones, and in the Scandinavian jazz world with people like Georg Riedel, Egil Johansen, Arne Domnérus, Svend Asmussen, and Jan Johansson. In 1964, she recorded the jazz album Waltz for Debby with Bill Evans, a record she herself described as "the best I've done" and was the most proud of.

Her professional skill was amply demonstrated in this album in performing the challenging Harold Arlen song, "So Long, Big Time". Her long career also included the song "En gång i Stockholm", a jazz ballad with which she represented Sweden in the Eurovision Song Contest 1963. She finished last, however, and scored nul points, but remained successful in Sweden. Her collaboration with the comic duo Hasse & Tage in the 1960s and 1970s eventually led to a stage career in revues and films.

Memorable are her parts in the films Att angöra en brygga and Äppelkriget, with her most memorable role being in Jan Troell's Utvandrarna (aka The Emigrants) as Ulrika, a former prostitute who together with her teenage daughter Elin (portrayed by Zetterlund's daughter, Eva Lena Zetterlund) join the main characters in their emigration to America in the 1850s, a role for which Zetterlund received a Guldbagge Award for Best Supporting Actress. She appeared in more than 20 films and television series.

Zetterlund was awarded the Illis quorum by the government of Sweden in 2002. She suffered from severe scoliosis which began after a childhood accident, and as a result was forced to retire from performing in 1999. On 12 May 2005, she died following an accidental fire in her apartment at Birger Jarlsgatan in Stockholm.