Hans Alfredson

Hans Folke "Hasse" Alfredson (28 June 1931 – 10 September 2017) was a Swedish actor, film director, writer and comedian. He was born in Malmö, Sweden. He is known for his collaboration with Tage Danielsson as the duo Hasse & Tage and their production company AB Svenska Ord ("Swedish Words Ltd"). His most celebrated contribution to their brand of humorist humanism was his ability to extemporize wildly absurd comic situations, for example in the Lindeman dialogues. Already in 1970 he gave a taste of another and less comedic side in the role as an rather unpleasant civil servant in Grisjakten. As time went by, Alfredson more or less totally turned around to become a serious author and film director. In 1982 he both directed and participated in the film The Simple-Minded Murderer, a motion picture based on his own novel "En ond man" ("An evil man"). Here Alfredson portrayed a rich and indeed very unpleasant manufacturer and Nazi-supporter who tormented the inhabitants of his native Scanian country-side in the 1930's. With just a brief return to a revue comedy in 1984, he never returned to that genre after the 1985 death of Tage Danielsson. Between 1992 and 1994 he was manager of the cultural museum "Skansen" at Stockholm. In the mid-zeroes he participated in the Danish criminal-odyssey The Eagle, and his last cinematic work came with the 2009 The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest. A film directed by one of his two sons, Daniel Alfredson. Alfredson played a hitman. Towards the end of his life, Alfredson made it clear that he strongly preferred his real name – Hans – not the rather commonly nickname "Hasse".