Film legend Bergman buried - Swedish media

STOCKHOLM, Aug 18 (Reuters) Film legend Ingmar Bergman was buried today on his home island in the Baltic sea at a private funeral attended by family and close friends, Swedish media reported.

Bergman, who died at the age of 89, was Sweden's most famous personality, known around the world for a career spanning 60 years and producing 54 films, 126 theatre productions and 39 radio plays.

He died at his home on Faro Island on July 30. Relatives said he died peacefully in his sleep.

He was buried in a simple, plain wood coffin at the Faro Church graveyard, Swedish news agency TT reported.

Journalists were kept from attending the ceremony and had to watch from afar, but media showed images of mourners dressed in black attending the ceremony. The priest hugged several family members after the burial.

Bergman influenced a generation of film-makers with stark works that dealt with sexual torment and the search for meaning in life.

American film-maker Woody Allen considered Bergman the greatest director of all time.

The Swedish writer and director, whose private life at times gained as much attention as his films, was catapulted to international fame in 1957 with ''The Seventh Seal'', a drama set in the Middle Ages in which a knight plays a game of chess with a personified Death.

Caned and humiliated by his father as boy, Bergman dealt with his childhood trauma in works such as the Oscar-winning ''Fanny and Alexander''.

Films such as ''Wild Strawberries'', ''Cries and Whispers'' and ''Scenes From a Marriage'' won worldwide critical praise, even if they sometimes left cinemagoers confused about their meaning.

Bergman was married five times. His four ex-wives, including a dancer, a director and a pianist, continued to speak highly of him, as did the actresses with whom he had affairs, among them Norwegian Liv Ullmann, his companion of the late 1960s.

He had nine children, four boys and five girls. Ullman and fellow actress Bibi Andersson, who starred in Bergman films, were among those gathered for the funeral, Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet reported.

REUTERS SKB PM1810