Signe Hasso, 86, a Swedish actress whose decades-long stage and film career included nearly two dozen Hollywood movies such as 1943's Heaven Can Wait, died Friday in Los Angeles.
The Swedish news agency TT reported that fellow Swede Peter Stormare, who has appeared in Chocolat and Armageddon, was by her side.
Ms. Hasso, who held dual Swedish and U.S. citizenship, is one of a few Swedish-born performers with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
She was born Signe Larsson in Stockholm, and at 12 appeared as an extra in stage plays at the Royal Dramatic Theatre there. At 16, she became the youngest person enrolled in drama studies there. Ms. Hasso appeared in numerous Swedish films in the late 1930s before moving to Hollywood in 1940, where she appeared in feature films, including George Cukor's A Double Life in 1947.
John H. Smither, 61, a partner in Houston's largest law firm and a collector of folk art, died of lymphoma Thursday.
Mr. Smither had been a director of the Folk Art Society of America. He also had been president of the Houston Ballet Foundation.
With his wife, Mr. Smither was owner of one of the Houston area's largest and most important collections of folk art. Housed in the Smithers' homes in Houston and Huntsville, it contained the works of such folk artists as the Rev. Howard Finster, Martin Ramirez, Carl Block, Roy Boling, Frank Jones, Jimmy Lee Sudduth, the Rev. Johnnie Swearingen and others.
Vicente Nebrada, 72, director of the National Ballet of Caracas and an internationally known choreographer, died of leukemia May 26 at his home in his native Caracas, Venezuela.
Mr. Nebrada, who also had a home in New York, was a popular figure in international ballet, a soft-spoken, quietly observant choreographer with a seemingly instinctive sense of the repertory needs of ballet company directors.
More than 30 companies have performed his choreography, including the American Ballet Theatre, the Joffrey Ballet, the Australia Ballet and the Universal Ballet of Korea.
He created versions of many classics, among them Romeo and Juliet, Coppelia, Don Quixote and Swan Lake. He could tell a story dramatically, as he did in Inez de Castro, a tale of doomed love among the nobility in early 14th-century Portugal. But Mr. Nebrada was also adept at plotless dances such as Una Danza Para Ti (A Dance for You), a tribute to the music of Venezuelan pianist and composer Teresa Carreno and to the art of ballet partnering.
Charles Ede, 80, who responded to the dreary appearance of books in austere postwar Britain by starting the Folio Society to create beautiful editions at affordable prices, died of heart failure May 29 at a clinic in Hampshire, England.
Mr. Ede, who became a leading mail-order dealer in antiquities after selling his book business in 1971, said his aim was to "publish the world's greatest literature in a format worthy of the contents, at a price within the reach of every man."
His attention to detail was the cornerstone of the enterprise - which still flourishes, with many subscribers around the world. He chose the texts, classics at first and later more venturesome fare. He selected fine typography and ordered fine bindings in a variety of materials. He employed leading artists to create understated yet evocative illustrations.
The success of the Folio Society was due partly to how it gave its members the feeling of belonging to a rather elite club at the cost of agreeing to buy four books from the dozen issued each year. For an extra $3 or so in dues, they could also drop by a clubroom in central London and enjoy sandwiches and wine.
Arthur Schoenberg, 81, who in 1986 became the oldest person in the nation to receive a heart transplant, died May 17 in Los Angeles. He suffered from kidney failure, cancer and a stroke.
Mr. Schoenberg was 66 when he received the heart of a 23-year-old man who had died in a motorcycle crash. At the time, the recommended cutoff point for transplants was 55, and Mr. Schoenberg had been turned down once for a donor heart.
But as his condition worsened, a screening committee at the University of California, Los Angeles, Heart Transplant Program reconsidered his case.
The new heart gave Mr. Schoenberg time to see grandchildren born, tour Europe and score three holes-in-one at golf.