Signe Hasso
Signe Hasso | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Signe Eleonora Cecilia Larsson 15 August 1915 |
| Died | 7 June 2002 (aged 86) Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Years active | 1933–1998 |
| Spouse(s) | Harry Hasso (1933–1941; divorce); 1 child William Langford (19??–1955; his death) |
Signe Hasso (15 August 1915 – 7 June 2002) was a Swedish-born American actress, writer and composer.
Background
Signe Eleonora Cecilia Larsson was born in the Kungsholmen parish of Stockholm, Sweden in 1915. Signe Hasso debuted at the prestigious Royal Dramatic Theatre in the year 1927 at the age of 12.
Career
In 1933, she made her first film, Tystnadens hus, with German film director/cameraman Harry Hasso, whom she subsequently married. In 1940, she moved to the United States, where she was signed to a contract by RKO Studios, who promoted her as "the next Garbo". She and Hasso divorced in 1941.
Her first role of note was as "Mademoiselle" in Heaven Can Wait (1943). Her other roles during the 1940s included The Seventh Cross (1944), Johnny Angel (1945), The House on 92nd Street (1945), A Scandal in Paris (1946) and A Double Life (1947).
By the 1950s, her Hollywood career had stalled. In 1957, her son and only child was killed in a car accident. From then on, she divided her time between making films in Sweden and acting on stage in New York until she returned to Hollywood in the mid 1960s.
In her later years, Hasso won acclaim for her work as a songwriter and writer, and for her work translating Swedish folk songs into English. In 1977, she wrote her debut novel, Momo, depicting her childhood in interwar Stockholm.
She was also a songwriter. Her second album, Where the Sun Meets the Moon, was released in 1979 and consisted of her own versions of Swedish folk tunes.
She continued acting, her last film being 2000's One Hell of a Guy.
Death
She died in Los Angeles in 2002, aged 86, from pneumonia resulting from lung cancer.[1]
Awards
In 1935, she received the Theatre League's De Wahl-stipendium and in 1939 the first Nordic nordiska Gösta Ekmanpriset. In 1972, the King of Sweden named her Member 1st Class of the Royal Order of Vasa. Hasso has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contribution to motion pictures, at 7080 Hollywood Boulevard.
Selected works
- Momo (1977)
- Kom slott (1978)
- Inte än (1988)
- Om igen (1989)
- Tidens vän (1990)
Partial filmography
- Vi två (We Two, 1939)[2]
- Assignment in Brittany (1943)
- Heaven Can Wait (1943)
- The Story of Dr. Wassell (1944)
- The Seventh Cross (1944)
- The House on 92nd Street (1945)
- Johnny Angel (1945)
- A Scandal in Paris (1946)
- Where There's Life (1947)
- A Double Life (1947)
- To the Ends of the Earth (1948)
- Crisis (1950)
- This Can't Happen Here (1950)
- Code Name: Heraclitus (1967)
- The Black Bird (1975)
- I Never Promised You a Rose Garden (1977)
References
- ^ Signe Hasso död (Aftonbladet Publicerad: 8 June 2002)
- ^ "At the 48th Street Theatre". The New York Times. December 2, 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.
External links
| International | |
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| National | |
| Artists | |
| People | |
| Other | |
- 1915 births
- 2002 deaths
- American film actors
- American stage actors
- American television actors
- Cancer deaths in California
- Deaths from lung cancer
- Deaths from pneumonia
- Naturalized citizens of the United States
- People from Stockholm
- Swedish emigrants to the United States
- Knights First Class of the Order of Vasa