Waldemar Zwinge

Waldemar Zwinge was born in Tune in eastern Norway, in 1874. His parents were ship-captain and shipowner Hans Christiansen and Danish-born Amalie Adelaide Zwinge, he mostly used his mother's last name. Zwinge was a man with many artistic interests, both in music, painting and theater. But the pay came first from many ordinary jobs, as a bank assistant and later as a commercial agent. In the years from around 1910 he was in addition, a theater organizer, playwright and choral conductor. In 1912 he and his wife Hildur starred in one of the first Norwegian silent films, called Anny. Like many Norwegians, Zwinge traveled with his wife and most of their children to the United States in 1927. He worked as an art painter, and decorator, he directed choirs, and was a diligent writer in the press. Zwinge became a widower in 1947, and married for the second time in 1951. He reached a high age when he died in the summer of 1972, aged 98. His second wife died the following year, aged 86.