Anne-Li Norberg was a Swedish actress. She participated in the developments in Swedish Theatre from the 1960s with the emergence of free groups outside the theatre institutions.
Anne-Li Norberg was born in 1953 in Sollentuna, the youngest daughter of Ingvar and Eivor Norberg, née Dafgård. Her father was a human resources manager and her mother was a school curator. She grew up in a middle-class family in Hässelbygård in a type of family hotel. She was interested in the theatre, singing and dancing even as a child. After dance school, she joined Vår Teater, a children’s theatre institution that had great significance as a nursery for young talents and their acting dreams. She matriculated in arts and started work as an office assistant at the Swedish Social Insurance Agency. She attended evening classes during this time at the Birkagården ABF’s (WEA) theatre school with Bernhard Krook as one of her teachers. She later worked as a postwoman to finance her studies at the newly started theatre and music school SAMS (Svenska Artist- och Musikerskolan).
In 1975, Anne-Li Norberg was accepted at the state theatre school Statens scenskola in Malmö where she had the opportunity of working with teachers from the Skånska Teatern in Landskrona, who she considered were role models on account of their being rooted in the interests of their audiences and engaged in social issues. In 1979, she was given the chance to take a small part in their production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream that won a good deal of attention (TV version in 1980). A few years after qualifying at the theatre school, she was given a permanent appointment at this theatre where she also met the actor Peter Haber who became her partner for ten years or so. Before that, she was engaged at Turteatern in Värmland for one season. Her appointment at Skånska Teatern lasted until 1982 when the theatre disbanded. She then accompanied Peter Oskarson to Gävle and the newly started theatre Folkteatern Gävleborg. Other actors also joined this theatre, like Peter Haber, Rolf Lassgård and Göran Forsmark.
She has herself described this period as turbulent, with great successes like Dario Fo’s Can’t Pay?Won’t Pay! or Brecht’s The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny. In 1987, she left Folkteatern for a more insecure existence as a freelance actress. She made occasional appearances at Stockholms stadsteater, Stockholms parkteater and Uppsala stadsteater. In 1991, she was employed by Riksteatern. She also worked for three seasons for the adult education enterprise TBV (Tjänstemännens bildningsverksamhet) with a workplace revue on stress. In 2000, she attended a course at the teacher training college in Stockholm which qualified her to teach on the aesthetics programme at senior high schools. This she did on Södra Latin’s theatre programme in Stockholm.
Between her various theatre engagements, she also managed to fit in about 25 TV roles. Most were supporting roles that were often important to create depth in the action. Many of her roles had the character of tough and independent people like police, military personnel or other persons of authority, often with a strong feeling of presence. Rather typical for a middle-aged freelance actress was also the fact that she now and then worked with quite different things like for example in a clothes shop.
Anne-Li Norberg died in 2018. She is interred in the Högalid columbarium. She was the mother of the actress Nina Haber.
