Eva was born in New York, USA, with a Norwegian father and a Swedish
mother, Ragni. They divorced when Eva was 6 years old and Ragni
remarried the actor
Uno Henning.
Eva was accepted to the Royal Dramatic Theater's acting school in 1938.
She had some minor roles both on the stage and in a few movies before
she got a major breakthrough with
Elvira Madigan (1943). When she met
Hasse Ekman in 1944
it was the start of a reciprocally useful relationship, both
artistically and personally. She was slim and beatiful but he gave her
roles that demanded more than just a pretty face, perhaps most of all
in
Banketten (1948), where she is a subjugated wife of a sadistic husband who is
in complete control of her. She had other memorable roles, notably the
young actress Pia in _Vandring med månen (1945)_ or as Dagmar Brink in
Girl with Hyacinths (1950).
After their divorce in 1953 she married the Norwegian actor
Toralv Maurstad and
did a lot of work at theaters in Norway.