Bergman marks birthday with stage retirement

Ingmar Bergman, one of the great masters of modern film, celebrated his 86th birthday Wednesday with a sour gift for fans -- an announcement that he’s retiring from the stage.

Bergman said his 2002 production of Henrik Ibsen’s “Ghost” at Sweden’s Royal Dramatic Theatre was his last.

“After ‘Ghost’ I decided that this must be it. I do not want them to carry me out of the theater. I’m leaving by myself,” he said in an interview with the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter. “Nobody will need to say, ‘Now the old man has to quit.’ ”