Signe Hasso

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

Hasso was born in the Kungsholmen parish of Stockholm in 1915. Her father and grandfather died when she was four, and her mother, grandmother, two siblings, and her shared a single room. Her mother, a former aspiring actress herself, worked as a waffle cook. Hasso attended Matteusskolan, Kungsholms elementarskola för flickor (elementary school for girls) and Norrmalms enskilda läroverk.

Hasso's 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. 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." Her audition for a Molière play was successful, and she started earning money as an actress. She performed in Royal Dramatic Theatre productions, beginning in 1927 at the age of 12, and enrolled as the youngest acting student in its history at the age of 16.

Hasso performed on stage and in film in Sweden. In 1933, she made her first film, Tystnadens hus, with German cinematographer/director Harry Hasso, whom she married the same year.

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), and she was promoted as the next Greta Garbo. With only a few RKO roles forthcoming, she turned to the stage to make a living. According to the Internet Broadway Database, she appeared in five Broadway productions, beginning with Golden Wings (1941). In the mid-1940s, she signed with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. 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 Where There's Life (1947). Her favorite role was as the ex-wife of an actor driven mad, played by Ronald Colman, in A Double Life (1947).

By the 1950s, Hasso's Hollywood career had stalled. 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, Hawkins, Cannon, Starsky and Hutch, The Streets of San Francisco, Ellery Queen, Quincy, M.E., Magnum, P.I., Trapper John, M.D., Hart to Hart, and The Fall Guy. She was also a frequent television guest on Bob Hope's NBC TV (Burbank) prime-time series.

Hasso worked as a composer, lyricist, songwriter and author. She also translated Swedish folk songs into English. Her debut novel, Momo (1977), depicts her childhood in interwar Stockholm. Her 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. She continued to act until late in her life, her last film being One Hell of a Guy (1998).

Her first husband was cinematographer/director Harry Hasso, whom she married in 1933. They had a son by the time she was 19, and divorced in 1942. In 1957, her son was killed in a car accident. In the seventies, she relocated to Park La Brea, Los Angeles where she remained until her death.

Hasso died of pneumonia and cancer at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles in 2002, aged 86.

In 1935, Hasso 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. In 1989, the Vasa Order of America named her Swedish-American of the Year. Hasso has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contribution to motion pictures, at 7080 Hollywood Boulevard.

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