Director Bo Widerberg first spotted the teenage Pia Degermark in a newspaper photo, dancing at a party with with the Swedish Crown Prince Carl Gustaf. He career seemed assured after he cast her as the lead in Elvira Madigan (1967/I), which debuted at Cannes and garnered critical and commercial acclaim. Degermark was heralded as the "new Ingrid Bergman" and offers came flooding in. However, in 1971 she married the producer Pier A. Caminnecci (in whose film Gebissen wird nur nachts (1971) she appeared). The marriage produced a son, Cesare, but ended two years later. Degermark then emigrated to the USA, but returned to her native Sweden in 1979, by now gravely ill and suffering from anorexia. Her acting career now over, she founded the organisation 'Alfta', devoted to the aid of other women suffering from the disease. She was eventually taken to court, accused of false claims and the organisation collapsed. It was at this time that Degermark became homeless and addicted to drugs - an addiction that led her to use fraudulent cheques in her desperation for money, and she was eventually committed to Stockholm's state prison.