Åke Lindman

Åke Leonard Lindman (born Åke Leonard Järvinen; born 11 January 1928 – 3 March 2009) was a Finnish director and actor.

In his youth Lindman was a football player, playing defence 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.