She appeared in multiple Broadway productions and was nominated twice for the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her performances as Lizzie Curry in 110 in the Shade and Irene Adler in Baker Street.

Inga Swenson was born in Omaha, Nebraska, on December 29, 1932,[1][a] the youngest of three children of Geneva Pauline (née Seeger) and Axel Carl Richard "A.C.R."

[9][10] Early in her career, Swenson had supporting roles in the films Advise & Consent (1962) and The Miracle Worker (1962) in which she played Helen Keller's mother.

Swenson was a trained lyric soprano[11][12] and starred on Broadway in New Faces (c. 1956), and The First Gentleman (1959), receiving Tony Award nominations for Best Actress in a Musical for her performances in 110 in the Shade (1964) and Baker Street (1965).

She was cast after having appeared in a multi-episode stint as the conniving revenge-seeking Ingrid Svenson, the Swedish birth mother of Corinne Tate (Diana Canova), on the TV sitcom Soap.