Max Von Sydow, Star of Bergman and Hollywood Films, Dies at 90

(Bloomberg) -- Max von Sydow, the Swedish actor who was a veteran of the austere cinema of Ingmar Bergman before appearing in Hollywood blockbusters including “The Greatest Story Ever Told” and “The Exorcist,” has died. He was 90.

He died Sunday, the Associated Press reported, citing his agent Jean Diamond. No cause was given.

Though closely associated with Bergman, von Sydow and his chiseled, lugubrious face found new fame and opportunity in Hollywood films.

Referring to his role as Emperor Ming in “Flash Gordon” (1980), he remarked, “In Ingmar’s movies, I never get to say, ’Prepare her for my pleasure.’”

He was nominated for an Academy Award for best actor for his role as a 19th-century Swedish emigrant to Denmark in “Pelle the Conqueror” (1987). The movie won the Oscar for best foreign language film.

Von Sydow maintained a degree of public anonymity, “a tribute,” he once said, “to my versatility as a performer.”

“I can’t imagine what I’d do if people came screaming at me the way they do Rock Hudson,” he said. “I’d probably be afraid to go out of my house.”

Drama School

Max Carl Adolf von Sydow was born in Lund, southern Sweden, on April 10, 1929. His father was a professor of comparative folklore at the University of Lund, and his mother, who came from a titled family, was a schoolteacher.

After some amateur acting in his teens, followed by military service, von Sydow attended drama school in Stockholm from 1948 to 1951, making his film debut for director Alf Sjoberg in 1949. He then met Bergman, who would direct him first on the stage and then on camera.

“We just had fun,” von Sydow said in a 2007 interview with Bloomberg Television, four months after Bergman’s death. “I know that people who don’t know Bergman thought he was a very serious, severe person. He was not at all. He was a very charming, very funny man, with a very drastic sense of humor.”

Von Sydow’s best-known role from that period was as the doomed medieval knight returning home from the Crusades who plays chess with death in Bergman’s “The Seventh Seal” (1957). Bloomberg News critic Peter Rainer called that “one of the most iconic scenes in movie history.”

Von Sydow’s other Bergman films included “The Virgin Spring” (1960), playing an avenging father whose daughter has been raped and murdered, and “Shame” (1968), portraying a violinist trapped in a civil war.

Hollywood Star

After turning down the title role in the first James Bond film, “Dr. No,” von Sydow came to Hollywood’s attention as Jesus Christ in George Stevens’ “The Greatest Story Ever Told” (1965). From then on, he split his time between Europe and the U.S., working with various directors in films including Woody Allen’s “Hannah and her Sisters” (1986) and the Jackie Chan vehicle “Rush Hour 3” (2007).

In “The Exorcist” (1973), he played Father Merrin, a Jesuit priest who tries to cast the demons out of a possessed girl.

Other films included “Three Days of the Condor” (1975), “Conan the Barbarian” (1982), “Dune” (1984), “Awakenings” (1990), “Minority Report” (2002) and “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” (2007).

He had two sons from his first marriage, with actress Kerstin Olin. The couple divorced. He had two sons with his second wife, filmmaker Catherine Brelet.

To contact the reporter on this story: Iain Millar in London at sgittelson@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Crayton Harrison at tharrison5@bloomberg.net, Laurence Arnold, Steven Gittelson

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