RIP Maria Gustafson

 

A beloved actress and presenter, unforgettable in a mythical TVE program, dies

Maria hit hit on TV in the 70s

El Nacional

By Dario Porras

March 25, 2025

 

Sad news that has just been known: the death of one of the components of one of the most mythical programs in the history of television in Spain. It was the decade of the 70s when a program, arising from the mind of Chicho Ibáñez Serrador, made the whole country stand in front of the televisions watching how different couples answered questions, how they participated in tests and how they took home some prize from the auction. We are talking, obviously, about One, two, three... answer again. A program that in its beginnings had Kiko Ledgard as its presenter. And a program that from the beginning had, among one of its house brands, a cast of hostesses with giant glasses.

Let's stay with the hostesses. Among the many girls who took part, many of them later earned a living as actresses. There was, for example, Victoria Abril, Kim Manning, Sílvia Marsó, Lydia Bosch, Isabel Serrano, Nina and so many others. And there was also a young Swedish woman, who, curiously, the stage name that Chicho Ibáñez Serrador made her give was different from hers. We are talking about Maria Gustafsson, renamed 'Britt', since it was strange, she said, for the viewer, that the Swedish stewardess had a name as Spanish as Maria. A Swedish stewardess-actress who has now passed away, unfortunately.

One of Britt's functions in the program, where, by the way, she was one of the few hostesses who was from the beginning to the end of that first stage in the 70s, before the arrival of the 80s and Mayra Gómez-Kemp, was to draw balls from the lucky drum, which decided who would compete in the coming weeks. In her native Sweden she had participated in amateur plays, but it was when she decided to move to Spain that she was able to develop her artistic career at a professional level. Precisely, one of the films in which she participated was 'La residencia', by Chicho Ibáñez Serrador himself, who was so happy with it that he later offered her to play a stewardess. As an actress, she participated in films such as 'The Last Mrs. Anderson', 'Long-Play', 'You Won't Wish for the Neighbor on the Fifth', 'The Boy and the Colt', 'Blood in the Ring', 'Through the Roof, the Stars', 'A Rope, a Colt' or 'Chronicles of a Town'.

She was currently living in Stockholm, although she traveled from time to time to Spain when there was a commemorative event of the program that launched her to fame. Rest in peace.

GUSTAFSON, Maria (Britt Monica Maria Gustafsson)

Born: 8/31/1946, Boden Sweden

Died: 3/23/2025, Aseda, Stockholm, Sweden

 

Maria Gustafson’s western – actress:

Cemetery Without Crosses – 1968 (saloon girl)