It's a long hop from Oslo, Norway - where Ingeborg Sorensen's mother minds the family drugstore while her father and brother are out driving cabs - to the Hollywood suburb of Bel-Air, where Ingeborg now lives in the company of four Venezuelan monkeys and a toy dachshund. Rest assured, though, that s
...he got from O to B in the most logical way - via Japan, where she toured department stores a few years ago, showing off Norwegian fashions as part of a Nordic festival. An American photographer suggested that she try Hollywood and she figured, "Well, I'm halfway around the world anyway; instead of going home by way of Alaska and Moscow, I may as well go via Hawaii and Los Angeles."
So Ingeborg - a former Miss Norway and Miss Europe who was also runner-up in the 1972 Miss World contest - paid a visit to the Southern California glitter capital. Then another. And after shuttling back and forth a few times between L.A. and Oslo, she moved to Hollywood for good. And it has been for good, as far as Ingeborg is concerned. She's been very busy making TV commercials, and you've probably recognized her already as the blonde who says "Watch Joe Namath get creamed!" in the Noxzema commercial ("How was Joe to work with? I'll just say very nice"). Ingeborg is currently studying acting with Jeff Corey - she's already made a couple of films but nothing she's inclined to brag about - and fully intends to be prepared for the big movie opportunity she's certain will come her way.
Her family isn't too crazy about her living in Hollywood ("We're extremely close, like most European families, who always want to have the people they love around them"), but, she declares, "I have to live my own life." Not that Ingeborg, who visits Norway about twice a year, doesn't miss it: "People care more about one another there than they do here, and they go out of their way to show affection. You always know you have friends. Here you have friends one day and if you don't have them the next, you don't much care. I'm sure that L.A. isn't typical of America, though. Perhaps the film industry has something to do with it, but the truth is that a lot of the people I've met out here are very artificial. As it happens, most of my friends - the people I spend time with - are Scandinavian." But even if she wishes the folks in L.A. were "a little more real," Ingeborg doesn't want to sound overly critical, because she does like living there. "Otherwise, I wouldn't stay."
The Southern California climate is a prime attraction: "If there's a fuel shortage here and you can't turn on the heat, you won't freeze. Norway is cold, and you would freeze." And she manages to enjoy herself, riding horseback, sketching or simply socializing. Then, too, she has her pets: "Any time I feel really lonely, I can talk to the animals - though I might have to get rid of the monkeys, because they're getting jealous of the dog, and I'd rather hold on to him." Now, what was that nonsense about leading a dog's life?
