Max von Sydox was a Swedish actor who had many appearances in American and European films. He died on March 8, 2020.
So let’s find out some trivia about his life and career.
- Max von Sydow was born on April 10, 1929
- His birth name was Carl Adolf von Sydow
- He died on March 8, 2020
- He was a Swedish actor who appeared in European and American films
- Von Sydow featured in more than 100 films and TV series
- His most memorable film roles include Knight Antonius Block in Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal (1957)
- It was the earliest of 11 films he made with Bergman
- This film includes iconic scenes in which his character plays chess with Death
- He also played Jesus Christ in George Stevens’ The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965)
- He also appeared in William Friedkin’s The Exorcist, David Lynch’s Dune (1984), Woody Allen’s Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), Penny Marshall’s Awakenings (1990), Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report (2002), Julian Schnabel’s The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007), and Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island (2010)
- He later appeared in Star Wars: The Force Awakens
- He also appeared in HBO’s Game of Thrones as Three-eyed Raven
- For the latter he received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination
- Throughout his long career he received two Academy Award nominations for his performances in Pelle the Conqueror (1987) and Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2011)
- Von Sydow received the Royal Foundation of Sweden’s Cultural Award in 1954
- He was made a Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres in 2005
- He was named a Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur on 17 October 2012
- Von Sydow became a French citizen after his second marriage
- Carl Adolf von Sydow was born on 10 April 1929 in Lund, Sweden
- His father, Carl Wilhelm von Sydow, was an ethnologist and professor of folkloristics at the University of Lund
- His mother, Maria Margareta (“Greta”), the Baroness Rappe, was a schoolteacher
- Von Sydow has German ancestry through his mother, who is of Pomeranian descent
- Von Sydow was brought up as a Lutheran
- He later became an agnostic
- Von Sydow attended Lund Cathedral School
- There he learned English at an early age
- He became interested in drama after seeing a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream
- This prompted him to found an amateur theatrical group along with some of his friends at school
- Von Sydow served for two years in the Swedish military with the Army Quartermaster Corps
- There he adopted the name “Max” from the star performer of a flea circus he saw
- After completing his service, von Sydow studied at the Royal Dramatic Theatre (Dramaten) in Stockholm
- He trained between 1948 and 1951
- During his time at the Dramaten, he helped start a theatre group, of which actress Ingrid Thulin was a member
- He made his stage debut in a small part in the Goethe play Egmont
- He considered it “almost a disaster”
- But received good reviews for his performance
- Von Sydow married actress Christina Inga Britta Olin in 1951
- They had two sons, Clas and Henrik
- Both appeared with him in the film Hawaii
- The couple divorced in 1979
- Von Sydow later married documentarian Catherine Brelet in 1997
- He adopted Brelet’s two children from a previous marriage
- In 2002, Von Sydow became a citizen of France
- At which time he had to relinquish his Swedish citizenship
- Von Sydow was reported to be either an agnostic or an atheist
- In 2012, he told Charlie Rose in an interview that Ingmar Bergman had told him he would contact him after death to show him that there was a life after death
- When Rose asked von Sydow if he had heard from Bergman, he replied that he had
- He chose not to elaborate further on the exact meaning of this statement
- In the same interview, he described himself as a doubter in his youth, but stated this doubt was gone
- He indicated he came to agree with Bergman’s belief in the afterlife
- Von Sydow was a regular guest of Roy Hodgson’s during Hodgson’s spell as manager of Blackburn Rovers
- He continued to support the club up until his death in March 2020
- Von Sydow died on 8 March 2020 at the age of 90
- He died at his home in Provence, France
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