Signe Eleonora Cecilia Hasso (néeLarsson; 15 August 1915 – 7 June 2002) was a Swedish actress, writer, and composer.
Biography
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 Germanfilm 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 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]
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]
^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
^Morning News, January 10, 1948, Who Was Who in America (Vol. 2)
^"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.
