Sally Bauer became known throughout Sweden as a long-distance swimmer in the 1930s, when, after crossing both the Öresund and the Kattegat, she swam across the English Channel between Great Britain and France. When she accomplished the feat in 1939, she was only the second woman to do so.
Her story is like it was made for a movie, Frida Kempff thinks.
— Even though this was 80 years ago, I can relate to what she went through. She was a single mother and unmarried in her 30s, she says at a press conference during the Cannes Film Festival.
Filming of “The Swedish Torpedo”, as the films are called, starts in August with Josefin Neldén in the lead role. She didn’t even know how to swim properly when she got the part. Since then she has been training.
— I just dove into this. I couldn’t crawl before, so I’ve been practicing several hours a day for a year and a half, she says.
Sally Bauer died in 2001, aged 92. The author Sara Stridsberg wrote the novel “Happy Sally” in 2004, based on her life.