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Signe Hasso

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Signe Hasso
Born
Signe Eleonora Cecilia Larsson

(1915-08-15)15 August 1915
Stockholm, Sweden
Died7 June 2002(2002-06-07) (aged 86)
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
OccupationActress
Years active1933–1998
Spouses
​
​
(m. 1933; div. 1942)​
William Langford
​
(died 1955)​
Children1

Signe Eleonora Cecilia Hasso (née Larsson; 15 August 1915 – 7 June 2002) was a Swedish actress, writer, and composer.

Biography

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Hasso was born in the Kungsholmen parish of Stockholm, Sweden in 1915.[1] Her father and grandfather died when she was four, and her mother, grandmother, two siblings, and she shared a single room.[2] Her mother, a former aspiring actress herself, worked as a waffle cook.[2]

Hasso attended Matteusskolan, Kungsholms elementarskola för flickor (elementary school for girls) and Norrmalms enskilda läroverk.[3]

Her acting career began by accident. When a young actress fell ill, her mother was asked if she knew of any little girl who could act. Signe Hasso later recalled, "I was 12 then and didn't want to go and neither did my sister, so my mother flipped a coin. I lost."[4] Her audition for a Molière play was successful, and she started earning money as an actress.[2] She performed in Royal Dramatic Theatre productions, beginning in 1927 at the age of 12,[5] and enrolled as the youngest acting student in its history at the age of 16.[5][6]

She performed on stage and in film in Sweden.[2] In 1933, Signe Larsson made her first film, Tystnadens hus, with German film director/cameraman Harry Hasso, whom she married the same year. They had a son by the time she was 19.[2] They divorced in 1942.[citation needed]

In Sweden, Signe was approached by Hollywood's Howard Hughes to move to the United States, where she signed a contract with RKO Pictures (which he would later control).[6] With only a few RKO roles forthcoming, she turned to the stage to make a living.[4] According to the Internet Broadway Database, she appeared in five Broadway productions, beginning with Golden Wings (1941).[7] In the mid-1940s, she signed with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.[6] Her first role of note was in Heaven Can Wait (1943). During the 1940s, she appeared in The Seventh Cross (1944), Johnny Angel (1945), The House on 92nd Street (1945), A Scandal in Paris (1946), and A Double Life (1947). Her favorite role was as the ex-wife of an actor driven mad, played by Ronald Colman, in A Double Life.[2]

In 1957, her son was killed in a motorcycle accident on Santa Monica Boulevard.[citation needed]

Signe was a frequent television guest on Bob Hope's NBC TV (Burbank) prime-time series. In the seventies Signe relocated to Park La Brea where she remained until her death.[citation needed]

From then on, she divided her time between making films in Sweden and acting on stage in New York City until she returned to Hollywood in the 1960s. She also acted on television, making guest appearances in several popular TV series, including Route 66, Bonanza, The Outer Limits, The Green Hornet, Cannon, Starsky and Hutch, The Streets of San Francisco, Ellery Queen, Quincy, M.E., Magnum, P.I., Trapper John, M.D., and Hart to Hart.

Hasso composed music, as a lyricist, songwriter and author. She also translated Swedish folk songs into English. Her debut novel, Momo (1977), depicts her childhood in interwar Stockholm. Hasso's second album, Where the Sun Meets the Moon (1979), consists of her own versions of Swedish folk tunes. In a 1995 interview, she stated she wanted to be remembered for her writing, not her acting.[2] She continued to act until late in her life, her last film being One Hell of a Guy (1998).[citation needed]

Death

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She died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, California in 2002, aged 86, of pneumonia and cancer.[8][9] Hasso adhered to Lutheranism.[10]

Awards

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In 1935, she received the Theatre League's De Wahl-stipendium and in 1939 the first Nordic nordiska Gösta Ekmanpriset. In 1972, King Gustaf VI Adolf of Sweden named her Member 1st Class of the Royal Order of Vasa.[2] In 1989, the Vasa Order of America named her Swedish-American of the Year.[2] Hasso has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contribution to motion pictures, at 7080 Hollywood Boulevard.[citation needed]

Selected bibliography

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  • Momo (1977)
  • Kom slott (1978)
  • Inte än (1988)
  • Om igen (1989)
  • Tidens vän (1990)

Complete filmography

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References

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  1. ^ 1915 Birth Record for Kungsholms Parish and its Record of baptisms, p. 91 [1915-års Födelsebok för Kungsholms församling och dess Dopbok, sid. 91]
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Adam Bernstein (10 June 2002). "'40s Actress Signe Hasso Dies". The Washington Post.
  3. ^ Vintkvist, Jennifer (2018-03-08). "Signe Hasso 1915-08-15 — 2002-06-07". Svenskt kvinnobiografiskt lexikon (in Swedish). Retrieved 2023-10-14. Utbildning: Folkskola, Stockholm, Matteus folkskola;Flickskola, Stockholm, Kungsholms elementarskola för flickor;Läroverk, Stockholm, Norrmalms enskilda läroverk
  4. ^ a b "Signe Hasso". Los Angeles Times.
  5. ^ a b Ronald Bergan (11 June 2002). "Signe Hasso". The Guardian.
  6. ^ a b c "Signe Hasso, 91, Screen Actress In Both Hollywood and Sweden". The New York Times. Reuters. 12 June 2002.
  7. ^ Signe Hasso at the Internet Broadway Database
  8. ^ "Signe Hasso". Variety. June 11, 2002.
  9. ^ "Signe Hasso, 91; Swede Acted for Leading Movie Directors". Los Angeles Times. June 9, 2002.
  10. ^ Morning News, January 10, 1948, Who Was Who in America (Vol. 2)
  11. ^ "At the 48th Street Theatre". The New York Times. 2 December 1939. Retrieved 2012-06-05. From the moment she appears as the gay and youthful wife of a rising young architect (Sture Lagerwall) in Vi två (We Two), a Terrafilm production directed by S. Bauman, until the final touchingly sentimental scene in the maternity hospital, Fröken Hasso is the cynosure of the spectators' sympathetic attention.

Further reading

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