The tall, dark Lindfors began her career on the Swedish stage while still a student at the Royal Dramatic Theater in Stockholm. She was featured in several films her native country (notably "The Spinning Family" 1940 and "In Paradise" 1941) before embarking on a Hollywood career. Lindfors played Queen Margaret opposite Errol Flynn in "The Adventures of Don Juan" (1948) and went on to co-star with Ronald Reagan in "Night Unto Night" (1949), directed by her third husband Don Siegel, and "Four in a Jeep" (1951) opposite Ralph Meeker. Typical of Hollywood, many compared Lindfors' elegant countenance and beauty with her fellow countrywoman Greta Garbo.
Lindfors made an acclaimed Broadway debut in 1955, starring in "Anastasia", portraying a woman who claimed to be the daughter of the Czar of Russia. The film role went to Ingrid Bergman. Lindfors alternated among stage, TV and films throughout the rest of her career. She starred in her own one-woman show "I Am Woman" and appeared with her son Kristoffer Tabori in "My Mother, My Son". Among her notable feature appearances were "No Exit" (1960), "The Way We Were" (1973), "A Wedding" and "Girlfriends" (both 1978) and "Creepshow" (1981). She wrote, directed and co-starred in "Unfinished Business . . . " (1987), a highly personal, autobiographical drama. Her final film was Henry Jaglom's "Last Summer in the Hamptons" (1995), a Chekhovian-inspired comedy/drama in which she played a grande dame actress spending time with her family.