Åke Lindman

In his youth Lindman was a football player, playing as a defender for the Finland national team during the Olympics in Helsinki 1952. He represented the football club HIFK in the Finnish league where he played 81 games and scored 9 goals, he also played in second division for 8 seasons. In the 1960s, the British English Football League club Swindon Town F.C. wanted to sign him, but he turned them down to focus on his acting career. Lindman began his movie career as an errand boy for Warner Bros. His first larger role as an actor was in Teuvo Tulio's Hornankoski, but his breakthrough as an actor came with his role as the stubborn soldier Lehto in the Edvin Laine film The Unknown Soldier in 1955 for which he received his first Jussi award. He was also the director or assistant director for several movies, starting with the 1957 film 1918 and continuing to the 2004 movie Beyond the Front Line and the 2007 movie Tali-Ihantala 1944. In addition to cinema, Lindman was active in television, both as an actor and a director of, amongst others, the television series Stormskärs Maja.

Lindman was born in Helsinki and grew up in a working class Vallila neighbourhood. His father was a truck driver. His brother Tor, who also became a footballer, was born in 1930. In 1932, his father Väinö Järvinen died from pneumonia, and some years later his mother Edit remarried to Gösta Lindman. Lindman was already an adult when he was legally adopted and changed his surname to his step-father's. Lindman was married to actress and singer Pirkko Mannola from 1968 until his death. They had one daughter. Lindman was granted an honorary title of Professor in 2000, and received an honorary doctorate in political science from Åbo Akademi in 2005.

1964: Make Like a Thief (co-director with Richard Long and Palmer Thompson) 1999: Lapin kullan kimallus 2004: Framom främsta linjen 2007: Tali-Ihantala 1944