Einar Hanson (;

Stockholm Stockholm () is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, largest city of Sweden as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people liv ...

, Sweden – ;

Santa Monica, California Santa Monica (; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Santa Mónica'') is a city in Los Angeles County, California, Los Angeles County, situated along Santa Monica Bay on California's South Coast (California), South Coast. Santa Monica's 2020 United Sta ...

), also known as Einar Hansen, was a Swedish

silent film A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) or key lines of dialogue may, when ...

actor.

Career

Discovered at Stockholm's

Royal Dramatic Theatre The Royal Dramatic Theatre ( sv, Kungliga Dramatiska Teatern, colloquially ''Dramaten'') is Sweden's national stage for "spoken drama", founded in 1788. Around one thousand shows are put on annually on the theatre's five running stages. The the ...

by director

Mauritz Stiller Mauritz Stiller (born Moshe Stiller, 17 July 1883 – 18 November 1928) was a Swedish film director of Finnish Jewish origin, best known for discovering Greta Garbo and bringing her to America. Stiller had been a pioneer of the Swedish film ...

, handsome and sophisticated, he was in 1927 ideally positioned to take over from the late Rudolph Valentino as Hollywood's "great screen lover". Upon his arrival in Hollywood in 1925, along with Stiller and the director's other protégée

Greta Garbo Greta Garbo (born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson; 18 September 1905 – 15 April 1990) was a Swedish-American actress. Regarded as one of the greatest screen actresses, she was known for her melancholic, somber persona, her film portrayals of tragedy, ...

, Hanson starred opposite some of the era's leading ladies, including

Pola Negri Pola Negri (; born Apolonia Chalupec ; 3 January 1897 – 1 August 1987) was a Polish stage and film actress and singer. She achieved worldwide fame during the silent and golden eras of Hollywood and European film for her tragedienne and femm ...

and

Corinne Griffith Corinne Griffith (née Griffin; November 21, 1894 – July 13, 1979) was an American film actress, producer, author and businesswoman. Dubbed "The Orchid Lady of the Screen," she was widely regarded as one of the most beautiful actresses of the ...

. Hanson was destined for even bigger and better things at Paramount Pictures, who had bought his original five-year contract from

Universal Studios Universal Pictures (legally Universal City Studios LLC, also known as Universal Studios, or simply Universal; common metonym: Uni, and formerly named Universal Film Manufacturing Company and Universal-International Pictures Inc.) is an Ameri ...

. He showed great progress opposite

Clara Bow Clara Gordon Bow (; July 29, 1905 – September 27, 1965) was an American actress who rose to stardom during the silent film era of the 1920s and successfully made the transition to "talkies" in 1929. Her appearance as a plucky shopgirl in the ...

and

Esther Ralston Esther Ralston (born Esther Louise Worth, September 17, 1902 – January 14, 1994) was an iconic American silent film star. Her most prominent sound picture was '' To the Last Man'' in 1933. Early life and career Ralston was born Esther Loui ...

in '' Children of Divorce'', as well as ''The Woman on Trial'' and ''

Barbed Wire A close-up view of a barbed wire Roll of modern agricultural barbed wire Barbed wire, also known as barb wire, is a type of steel fencing wire constructed with sharp edges or points arranged at intervals along the strands. Its primary use is t ...

'' both with

, and ''Fashions for Women'' (all 1927), directed by

Dorothy Arzner Dorothy Emma Arzner (January 3, 1897 – October 1, 1979) was an American film director whose career in Hollywood spanned from the silent era of the 1920s into the early 1940s. With the exception of longtime silent film director Lois Weber (who d ...

Death

On June 3, 1927, Hanson was on his way home from having dinner with Stiller and Garbo when his car apparently skidded off the road on the Pacific Coast Highway near

Topanga Canyon Topanga () (Tongva: ''Topaa'nga'') is a census-designated place (CDP) in western Los Angeles County, California, United States. Located in the Santa Monica Mountains, the community exists in Topanga Canyon and the surrounding hills. The narrow s ...

. He died on the way to the hospital. Barry Paris, in his 1994 biography ''Garbo'', says that Hanson met Garbo and Stiller at a party where Hanson became intoxicated and he drove off on his own, leading to the fatal accident.

Filmography

* ''Hemsöborna'' (1919) * '' Mälarpirater'' (1923) * ''

The Blizzard "The Blizzard" (or The Snow Storm) (russian: Мете́ль, ''Metél' '') is the second of five short stories that constitute ''The Belkin Tales'' by Alexander Pushkin. The manuscript for the story was originally completed October 20, 1830. It wa ...

'' (1923) based on the

Selma Lagerlöf Selma Ottilia Lovisa Lagerlöf (, , ; 20 November 1858 – 16 March 1940) was a Swedish author. She published her first novel, '' Gösta Berling's Saga'', at the age of 33. She was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, which she wa ...

novel ''Gunnar Hedes saga'' * '' Johan Ulfstjerna'' (1923) * '' 33.333'' (1924) * '' Life in the Country'' (1924) * ''

Fra Piazza del Popolo A friar is a member of one of the mendicant orders founded in the twelfth or thirteenth century; the term distinguishes the mendicants' itinerant apostolic character, exercised broadly under the jurisdiction of a superior general, from the o ...

'' (1925) * '' Rags and Silk'' (1925) * '' 40 Skipper Street'' (1925) * '' Takt, tone og tosser'' (1925) * ''

The Joyless Street ''Joyless Street'' (german: Die freudlose Gasse), also titled ''The Street of Sorrow'' or ''The Joyless Street'', is a 1925 German silent film directed by Georg Wilhelm Pabst starring Greta Garbo and Asta Nielsen. It is based on a novel by Hugo ...

'' (1925) directed by

G. W. Pabst Georg Wilhelm Pabst (25 August 1885 – 29 May 1967) was an Austrian film director and screenwriter. He started as an actor and theater director, before becoming one of the most influential German-language filmmakers during the Weimar Republic. ...

* ''

Into Her Kingdom ''Into Her Kingdom'' is a 1926 American silent film featuring a Technicolor sequence which dramatizes the Russian Revolution. It was based on a 1925 short story of the same name by Ruth Comfort Mitchell, originally published in Red Book Magaz ...

'' (1926) * '' Her Big Night'' (1926) * '' The Lady in Ermine'' (1927) * '' The Masked Woman'' (1927) * '' Fashions for Women'' (1927) * '' Children of Divorce'' (1927) * ''

'' (1927) * ''

The Woman on Trial ''The Woman on Trial'' is a 1927 American silent film directed by Mauritz Stiller, starring Pola Negri, and based on the play ''Confession'' by Erno Wajda (aka Ernest Vajda). Adolph Zukor, Jesse L. Lasky, and B. P. Schulberg produced for Param ...

'' (1927)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Hanson, Einar Swedish male silent film actors 20th-century Swedish male actors Swedish male film actors Road incident deaths in California 1899 births 1927 deaths Male actors from Stockholm Swedish expatriates in the United States