| Caption | Von Sydow at the 2006 San Sebastian International Film Festival |
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| Birth date | April 10, 1929 |
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| Birth place | Lund, Skåne, Sweden |
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| Occupation | Actor |
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| Birth name | Carl Adolf von Sydow |
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| Years active | 1949–present |
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| Spouse | Kerstin Olin (1951–1996; two sons)Catherine Brelet (1997–present; two sons) |
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Max von Sydow (; Swedish: ; born 10 April 1929) is a Swedish actor. He has also held French citizenship since 2002. He has starred in many films and had supporting roles in dozens more. He has performed in films filmed in many languages, including Swedish, Norwegian, English, Italian, German, Danish, French and Spanish.
Some of his most memorable film roles include knight Antonius Block in Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal (the first of his eleven films with Bergman and the film that includes the iconic shot of his career in the scene where he plays chess with Death), Jesus in George Stevens's The Greatest Story Ever Told, Father Merrin in Friedkin's The Exorcist, Joubert the assassin in Three Days of the Condor, and Ming the Merciless in the 1980 version of Flash Gordon.
Early life
Von Sydow was born
Carl Adolf von Sydow to a wealthy family in
Lund,
Skåne, Sweden. His father, Carl Wilhelm von Sydow, was an
ethnologist and professor of Irish,
Scandinavian and comparative folklore at the
University of Lund. His mother, Baroness Greta (née Rappe), was a school teacher. Von Sydow was brought up as a
Lutheran and later became an
agnostic.
He attended the Cathedral School of Lund, and learned German and English starting at the age of nine. At school, he and some friends founded an amateur theatre company. He completed National Service before studying at the Royal Dramatic Theatre ("Dramaten") in Stockholm, where he trained between 1948 and 1951 with the likes of Lars Ekborg, Margaretha Krook and Ingrid Thulin. During his time at Dramaten, he made his screen debut in Alf Sjöberg's films Only a Mother (Bara en mor, 1949), and Miss Julie (Fröken Julie, 1951), a screen version of Swedish playwright August Strindberg's well known play.
Career
In 1955 he moved to
Malmö, where he met his
mentor,
Ingmar Bergman. His first work with Bergman occurred on stage at the Malmö Municipal Theatre. Von Sydow later would work with Bergman on films such as
The Seventh Seal (
Det sjunde inseglet, 1957),
Wild Strawberries (
Smultronstället, 1957) and
The Virgin Spring (
Jungfrukällan, 1960). In
The Seventh Seal, von Sydow is the knight who plays a
chess game with Death to buy time for his companions. The scene and the film were both international breakthroughs for actor and director alike. It was in these films where von Sydow honed and perfected his craft.
Von Sydow came to dominate the screen as he did the stage, becoming an idol of the international arthouse film scene. Critical recognition came as early as 1954 when he was awarded the Royal Foundation Culture Award. He worked profusely on both stage and screen while in Scandinavia, resisting the increasing calls from the United States to go to Hollywood.
After being seen in Bergman's Academy Award–winning films and having been first choice for the title role of Dr. No, von Sydow finally went to America after agreeing to star in the film which led to much greater recognition, in the role of Jesus in George Stevens' all-star epic The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965). Because his talents were soon in demand in other American productions, von Sydow and his family eventually moved to Los Angeles.
From 1965, von Sydow became a regular on the American screen while maintaining a presence in his native Sweden. In 1969 he appeared in John Huston's The Kremlin Letter. Though perhaps typecast as a villain, he was rewarded in the United States with two Golden Globe nominations for Hawaii and The Exorcist in 1973. In the mid-1970s, von Sydow moved to Rome and appeared in a number of Italian films, becoming friendly with another screen legend, Marcello Mastroianni. In the U.S., he played a memorably professional Alsatian assassin in Three Days of the Condor (1975), a role which won him the KCFCC Award for Best Supporting Actor. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, von Sydow appeared in such films as Flash Gordon (1980), Strange Brew (1983), David Lynch's Dune (1984), and Woody Allen's Hannah and Her Sisters (1986). In 1985, he was a member of the jury at the 35th Berlin International Film Festival. He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in the Danish film Pelle the Conqueror (1987), which itself won an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
, who founded Dramaten, was assassinated (16 March 1792), von Sydow attended a meeting there commemorating the date, 16 March 1992; this photo was taken in the stage entrance.]]
Von Sydow has since won the Australian Film Institute's Best Actor Award for his title role in Father (1989), the Guldbagge Best Director Award for his only directorial foray, Katinka (Ved vejen, 1988), based on a novel by Herman Bang, and the Best Actor Award at the Tokyo International Film Festival for The Silent Touch (Dotknięcie ręki, 1993). He received international acclaim for his performance as Nobel Prize–winning novelist Knut Hamsun in Jan Troell's biopic Hamsun. He received his third Swedish Guldbagge and his second Danish Bodil for his depiction of a character often described as his King Lear. In 1996, he starred in Liv Ullmann's Private Confessions (Enskilda samtal). Back in Hollywood, he appeared in What Dreams May Come.
He was acclaimed for his role as an elderly lawyer in Scott Hicks' Snow Falling on Cedars. In 2002, von Sydow had one of his largest commercial successes, co-starring with Tom Cruise in Steven Spielberg's science fiction thriller Minority Report. In 2003, he played mentor character Eyvind in the European TV adaptation of the Ring of the Nibelung saga. The show set ratings records and was released in the USA as . In 2007, von Sydow starred in the box-office hit Rush Hour 3. He followed that with Julian Schnabel's award-winning foreign film The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, based on the memoir by Jean-Dominique Bauby.
Recently, von Sydow appeared in Showtime's drama series The Tudors, where he portrayed Cardinal Otto Truchsess Von Waldburg, a German-born clergyman who tries to organize the defeat of King Henry VIII. He as well appeared in Martin Scorsese's 2010 film adaptation of Shutter Island and Ridley Scott's 2010 adaption of Robin Hood, playing Robin's blind stepfather, Sir Walter Loxley.
von Sydow will voice the character of Esbern in , set for release in November 2011. He narrates the initial teaser trailer for the game.
Personal life
On 1 August 1951, von Sydow married actress
Kerstin Olin, with whom he has two sons, Claes and Henrik. His children appeared with him in the film
Hawaii, playing his son at different ages. He divorced Olin in 1996.
Von Sydow then married French filmmaker Catherine Brelet on 30 April 1997 in Provence; they have two sons, Cedric (b. 1970) and Yvan (b. 1971). He currently lives with his wife in Paris, where he enjoys reading, listening to music and gardening. He received French citizenship in 2002 and now holds dual Swedish/French citizenship.
Filmography
{|class="wikitable" style="font-size: 90%;" border="2" cellpadding="4" background: #f9f9f9;
|- align="center"
! style="background:#B0C4DE;" | Year
! style="background:#B0C4DE;" | Film
! style="background:#B0C4DE;" | Role
! style="background:#B0C4DE;" | Notes
|-
|1949
|
Only a Mother
|Nils
|
|-
|1951
|
Miss Julie
|Hand
|
|-
|1953
|
Ingen mans kvinna
|Olaf
|
|-
|1956
|
Rätten att älska
|Bergman
|
|-
|rowspan=3|1957
|
Herr Sleeman kommer
|The Hunter
|(TV)
|-
|
The Seventh Seal
|Antonius Block
|
|-
|
Wild Strawberries
| Henrik Åkerman
|
|-
|rowspan=3|1958
|
Brink of Life
|Harry Andersson
|
|-
|
Rabies
|Bo Stensson Svenningson
|
|-
|
The Magician
|Albert Emanuel Vogler
|
|-
|rowspan=2|1960
|
The Virgin Spring
|Töre
|
|-
|
The Wedding Day
|Anders Frost
|
|-
|1961
|
Through a Glass Darkly
|Martin
|
|-
|rowspan=2|1962
|
The Adventures of Nils Holgersson
|The Father
|
|-
|
The Mistress
|Married Man
|
|-
|1963
|
Winter Light
|Jonas Persson
|
|-
|rowspan=3|1965
|
4 x 4
|Kvist
|(segment "Uppehåll i myrlandet")
|-
|
The Reward
|Scott Swenson
|
|-
|
The Greatest Story Ever Told
|Jesus
|
|-
|rowspan=3|1966
|
The Quiller Memorandum
|Oktober
|
|-
|
Hawaii
|Rev. Abner Hale
|Nominated –
Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture Actor - Drama
|-
|
Here's Your Life
|Smålands-Pelle
|
|-
|1967
|
The Diary of Anne Frank
|
Otto Frank
|(TV)
|-
|rowspan=3|1968
|
Hour of the Wolf
|Johan Borg
|
|-
|
Black Palm Trees
|Gustav Olofsson
|
|-
|
Shame
|Jan Rosenberg
|
|-
|rowspan=2|1969
|
Made in Sweden
|Magnus Rud
|
|-
|
The Passion of Anna
|Andreas Winkelman
|
|-
|1970
|
The Kremlin Letter
|Colonel Kosnov
|
|-
|rowspan=4|1971
|
The Night Visitor
|Salem
|
|-
|
The Emigrants
|Karl Oskar
|
|-
|
The Apple War
|Roy Lindberg
|
|-
|
The Touch
|Andreas Vergerus
|
|-
|rowspan=2|1972
|
Embassy
|Gorenko
|
|-
|
The New Land
|Karl Oskar
|
|-
|1973
|
The Exorcist
|
Father Lankester Merrin
|Nominated –
Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor - Motion Picture
|-
|1974
|
Steppenwolf
|Harry Haller
|
|-
|rowspan=3|1975
|
The Ultimate Warrior
|Baron
|
|-
|
Egg! Egg! A Hardboiled Story
|The Father
|
|-
|
Three Days of the Condor
|G. Joubert
|
KCFCC Award for Best Supporting Actor
|-
|rowspan=5|1976
|
Cuore di cane
|Professor Filipp Filippovich Preobrazenski
|
|-
|
Voyage of the Damned
|Captain Schroeder
|
|-
|
The Desert of the Tartars
|Hortiz
|
|-
|
Foxtrot
|Larsen
|
|-
|
Illustrious Corpses
|Supreme Court's President
|
|-
|rowspan=2|1977
|
March or Die
|François Marneau
|
|-
|
|
Father Lankester Merrin
|
|-
|1978
|
Brass Target
|Shelley
|
|-
|1979
|
Hurricane
|Dr. Danielsson
|
|-
|rowspan=2|1980
|
Death Watch
|Gerald Mortenhoe
|
|-
|
Flash Gordon
|The Emperor Ming / Ming's Floating Servant
|Nominated –
Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor
|-
|1981
|
Escape to Victory
|Major Karl Von Steiner—The Germans
|aka: "Victory"
|-
|rowspan=2|1982
|
Flight of the Eagle
|Salomon August Andrée
||
Venice Film Festival Pasinetti Cup for Best Actor
|-
|
Conan the Barbarian
|King Osric
|
|-
|rowspan=2|1983
|
Strange Brew
|Brewmeister Smith
|aka: "The Adventures of Bob & Doug McKenzie: Strange Brew"
|-
|
Never Say Never Again
|
Ernst Stavro Blofeld
| Unofficial James Bond film
|-
|rowspan=4|1984
|
Dreamscape
|Doctor Paul Novotny
|
|-
|
Samson and Delilah
|Sidka
|(TV)
|-
|
The Soldier's Tale
|
The Devil
|
|-
|
Dune
|Doctor Kynes
|
|-
|rowspan=6|1985
|
|Jurgen Brausch
|
|-
|
Christopher Colombus
|King John of Portugal
|TV Mini-series
|-
|
The Last Place on Earth
|Fridtjof Nansen
|TV Mini-series
|-
|
Kojak: The Belarus File
|Peter Barak
|(TV)
|-
|
Quo Vadis?
|The Apostle Peter
|TV Mini-series
|-
|
The Repenter
|Spinola
|
|-
|rowspan=4|1986
|
Duet for One
|Dr. Louis Feldman
|
|-
|
Hannah and Her Sisters
|Frederick
|
|-
|
The Second Victory
|Dr. Huber
|
|-
|
The Wolf at the Door
|
August Strindberg
|aka: "Oviri"
|-
|1987
|
Pelle the Conqueror
|Lassefar
|
Bodil Award Best ActorEuropean Film Award for Best ActorGuldbagge Award Best ActorRobert Festival Best ActorNominated –
Academy Award for Best Actor
|-
|1988
|
Katinka
|
|First and only film as director
|-
|rowspan="2"|1989
|
Red King, White Knight
|Szaz
|Nominated –
Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor - Miniseries or a Movie
|-
|
Ghostbusters II
|Vigo the Carpathian
|Voice, dubbed voice
|-
|rowspan=4|1990
|
A Violent Life
|
Pope Clement VII
|
|-
|
Hiroshima: Out of the Ashes
|Father Siemes
|(TV)
|-
|
Father
|Joe Mueller
|
Australian Film Institute Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
|-
|
Awakenings
|Dr. Peter Ingham
|
|-
|rowspan=5|1991
|
The Ox
|Vicar
|
|-
|
Until the End of the World
|Henry Farber
|
|-
|
Europa
|Narrator
|(voice)
|-
|
A Kiss Before Dying
|Thor Carlsson
|
|-
|
The Bachelor
|Von Schleheim
|
|-
|1992
|
The Best Intentions
|Johan Åkerblom, Anna's father
|
Tokyo International Film Festival Best Actor
|-
|rowspan=2|1993
|
Och ge oss skuggorna
|
Eugene O'Neill
|(TV)
|-
|
Needful Things
|Leland Gaunt
|Nominated –
Saturn Award for Best Actor
|-
|1994
|
Time Is Money
|Joe Kaufman
|
Karlovy Vary International Film Festival Best Actor
|-
|rowspan=2|1995
|
Citizen X
|Dr. Alexandr Bukhanovsky
|(TV)Nominated –
CableACE Award for Supporting Actor in a Movie or a Miniseries
|-
|
Judge Dredd
|
Judge Fargo
|
|-
|rowspan=3|1996
|
Private Confessions
|Jacob
|(TV)
|-
|
Samson and Delilah
|Narrator
|(TV) (voice)
|-
|
Hamsun
|Knut Hamsun
|
Guldbagge Award Best ActorValladolid International Film Festival Best Actor
|-
|rowspan=3|1997
|
Solomon
|David
|(TV)
|-
|
The Princess and the Pauper
|Epos
|(TV)
|-
|
Hostile Waters
|Admiral Chernavin
|(TV)
|-
|1998
|
What Dreams May Come
|The Tracker
|
|-
|1999
|
Snow Falling on Cedars
|Nels Gudmundsson
|
|-
|2000
|
Nuremberg
|Samuel Rosenman
|TV Mini-series
|-
|rowspan=3|2001
|
Intacto
|Samuel
|
|-
|
Druids
|Guttuart
|
|-
|
Sleepless
|Ulisse Moretti
|
|-
|2002
|
Minority Report
|Director Lamar Burgess
|Nominated –
Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor
|-
|2004
|
|Eyvind
|(TV)
|-
|2005
|
Heidi
|Uncle Alp
|
|-
|2006
|
The Inquiry
|Tiberius
|
|-
|rowspan=3|2007
|
Rush Hour 3
|Reynard
|
|-
|
Emotional Arithmetic
|Jakob Bronski
|Nominated –
Genie Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role
|-
|
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
|Papinou
|
|-
|rowspan=3|2009
|
The Tudors
|
Cardinal Von Walburg
|(TV series) (4 episodes)
|-
|
|Vigo the Carpathian
|Video Game Voice-over
|-
|
Solomon Kane
|Josiah Kane
|
|-
|rowspan=3|2010
|
Shutter Island
|Dr. Jeremiah Naehring
|
|-
|
Robin Hood
|Sir Walter Loxley
|
|-
|
The Wolfman (Extended Cut)
|Man on train with silver cane (uncredited)
|Even though his part was removed from the theatrical cut, there is still a credit for "Assistant to Mr. Von Sydow."
|-
|rowspan=3|2011
|
Truth & Treason
|Frank Fikeis
|-
|
|Esbern
|Video Game Voice-over
|-
|''
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
|
|
|}
References
External links
A Max von Sydow home page
Category:1929 births
Category:Living people
Category:European Film Awards winners (people)
Category:People from Lund
Category:People from Provence
Category:Swedish agnostics
Category:Swedish film actors
Category:Swedish immigrants to France
Category:French people of Swedish descent
Category:Swedish people
Category:Swedish television actors
![Holy Trinity, fresco by Luca Rossetti da Orta, 1738-9 (St. Gaudenzio Church at Ivrea). The Trinity is most commonly seen in Christian art with the Spirit represented by a dove, as specified in the Gospel accounts of the Baptism of Christ; it is nearly always shown with wings outspread. However depictions using three human figures appear occasionally in most periods of art.[102] The Father and the Son are usually differentiated by age, and later by dress, but this too is not always the case. The](http://web.archive.org./web/20110905211034im_/http://cdn7.wn.com/pd/8d/f2/8762dea0dbe33f4e04c8b5e94dbc_grande.jpg "Holy Trinity, fresco by Luca Rossetti da Orta, 1738-9 (St. Gaudenzio Church at Ivrea). The Trinity is most commonly seen in Christian art with the Spirit represented by a dove, as specified in the Gospel accounts of the Baptism of Christ; it is nearly always shown with wings outspread. However depictions using three human figures appear occasionally in most periods of art.[102] The Father and the Son are usually differentiated by age, and later by dress, but this too is not always the case. The")
![Holy Trinity, fresco by Luca Rossetti da Orta, 1738-9 (St. Gaudenzio Church at Ivrea). The Trinity is most commonly seen in Christian art with the Spirit represented by a dove, as specified in the Gospel accounts of the Baptism of Christ; it is nearly always shown with wings outspread. However depictions using three human figures appear occasionally in most periods of art.[102] The Father and the Son are usually differentiated by age, and later by dress, but this too is not always the case. The](http://web.archive.org./web/20110905211034im_/http://cdn6.wn.com/pd/8d/f2/8762dea0dbe33f4e04c8b5e94dbc_thumb.jpg "Holy Trinity, fresco by Luca Rossetti da Orta, 1738-9 (St. Gaudenzio Church at Ivrea). The Trinity is most commonly seen in Christian art with the Spirit represented by a dove, as specified in the Gospel accounts of the Baptism of Christ; it is nearly always shown with wings outspread. However depictions using three human figures appear occasionally in most periods of art.[102] The Father and the Son are usually differentiated by age, and later by dress, but this too is not always the case. The")
