Jenny Hasselquist

Jenny Matilda Elisabet Hasselquist, also spelled Hasselqvist (31 July 1894 – 8 June 1978), was a Swedish prima ballerina, film actress, and ballet teacher.

Biography Jenny Matilda Elisabet Hasselquist was born in Stockholm on 31 July 1894 to Johannes Johansson Hasselquist and Sofia Katarina Mathilda Hasselquist. She had two older brothers, Wilhelm (1887–1959), and Gerhard (1889–1950).

She attended the Swedish Opera's ballet school from 1906 and performed with the Royal Ballet from 1910. In 1913, Michel Fokine noticed her talents and ensured she obtained solo roles in La Sylphide and Cleopatra. She became a prima ballerina at the Royal Ballet in 1915.

In 1920, Hasselquist starred in Rolf de Maré's Ballets suédois in Paris. A talented dancer, she had a flair for the modern idiom. However she left de Maré after just one season, apparently dissatisfied with her potential there. She went on to play leading roles in many Swedish and some German silent films including Johan (1921), Vem dömer (1922), The Hell Ship (1923), and Aftermath (1927). She also appeared as a guest dancer in many of Europe's leading theatres including the Coliseum in London, the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris and the Deutsches Theater in Berlin.

Hasselquist was married twice: to the artist Wilhelm Kåge from 1918 to 1922 and to the landscape gardener Gösta Reuterswärd from 1923 to 1927.

Selected filmography Sumurun (1920) The Burning Secret (1923) The Suitor from the Highway (1923) Ways to Strength and Beauty (1925) The Wig (1925) Ingmar's Inheritance (1925) To the Orient (1926) The Girl Without a Homeland (1927) Guilty (1928) Say It with Music (1929)