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Max Von Sydow
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Biography from Leonard Maltin's Movie Encyclopedia:
Lean-faced, sandy-haired, pencil-thin actor who made his name with America's art-house crowd playing tormented protagonists in a number of director Ingmar Bergman's best-known features, including The Seventh Seal (1957), in which he played chess with the hooded figure of Death. He was cast as Christ in George Stevens' biblical epic The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965) and has enjoyed international star status ever since. Von Sydow, a classically trained actor who studied at Stockholm's Royal Dramatic Theater School, won his first film role in Bara en Mor (1949), but spent the first half of the 1950s perfecting his craft on stage. He appeared in a number of Bergman films in the late 1950s and 1960s, including Wild Strawberries (1957), The Magician, Brink of Life(both 1958), The Virgin Spring (1959), Through a Glass, Darkly (1962), Hour of the Wolf Shame (both 1968), The Passion of Anna (1969), and The Touch (1971). As von Sydow's stock rose with international producers, he was enlisted to appear in many American and English-language films, including The Quiller Memorandum, Hawaii (both 1966), Steppenwolf (1974), Three Days of the Condor (1975), and Hurricane (1979). He starred in Jan Troell's epic two-part story The Emigrants (1971) and The New Land (1972), and in 1973 made a vivid impression as frail Father Merrin, the title character in The Exorcist (He also appeared in Exorcist II: The Heretic in 1977.) Von Sydow is one of those actors of whom it can be said that he always, always maintains his own dignity in a film, regardless of how silly the production or the story may be (see 1980's Flash Gordon in which he plays Ming the Merciless). He worked almost constantly on a wide variety of projects during the 1980s, from high, wrenching drama like Pelle the Conqueror (1988, for which he earned his only Oscar nomination) to the hallucinatory comedy Strange Brew (1983, which he appeared to enjoy more than a "distinguished actor" might be expected to; costar Dave Thomas even imitates his voice in one scene, uncannily well). In 1988 he made his directing debut with Katinka Recent films include Wim Wenders' Until the End of the World (1991) and The Best Intentions (1992, as Ingmar Bergman's grandfather). He can also be heard doing voice-overs on a number of American TV commercials. In 1993 he played The Devil in the Stephen King saga Needful Things making him the only actor in memory who's played Lucifer, an exorcist, and Jesus Christ. |  |
