Signe Hasso was a Swedish actress, writer, and composer.
Biography
Hasso was born in the Kungsholmen parish of Stockholm, Sweden in 1915. Her father and grandfather died when she was four, and she, her mother, grandmother and two siblings shared a single room. Her mother, a former aspiring actress herself, worked as a waffle cook. 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." 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. She performed on stage and in film in Sweden. In 1933, she 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. They divorced in 1941. In 1940, she moved to the United States, where she signed a contract with RKO Pictures, who promoted her as "the next Garbo". With 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. In the mid-1940s, she signed with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Her first role of note was in Heaven Can Wait. During the 1940s, she appeared in The Seventh Cross, Johnny Angel, The House on 92nd Street, A Scandal in Paris, and A Double Life. Her favorite role was as the ex-wife of an actor driven mad, played by Ronald Colman, in A Double Life. 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 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, Quincy, M.E., Magnum, P.I., Trapper John, M.D. and Hart to Hart. In her later years, Hasso worked as a songwriter and writer and translated Swedish folk songs into English. Her debut novel, Momo, depicts her childhood in interwar Stockholm. Hasso's second album, Where the Sun Meets the Moon, 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. Hasso received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contributions to the motion picture industry. Her star ceremony was held on February 1, 1994 with the star located at 7080 Hollywood Blvd.
