Max von Sydow

Carl Adolf von Sydow was born on April 10th 1929 to a middle class family in Lund, southern Sweden. His father, Carl Wilhelm, was a professor of comparative folklore at the nearby University of Lund: his mother, Maria, was a school teacher. He had at least one brother who died during the filming of Max’s most controversial film ‘The Exorcist’. Little material is available on von Sydow’s childhood except that he seems to have been a shy, quiet child. He attended the Cathedral School of Lund but despite being taught English from the age of nine, Max initially professed little interest in working outside Sweden.

In their late teens, Max and some friends founded an amateur theatre company and this is where he started his acting career. He completed National Service before going on to study at The Royal Dramatic Theatre 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 Sjoberg’s 1949 film ‘Bara en Mor’ and his second film, the Swedish classic ‘Miss Julie’, also directed by Sjoberg.

It was when Max moved to Malmö in 1955 that he met his great mentor Ingmar Bergman with whom he worked first on stage (at Malmö Municipal Theatre) and later on films such as ‘The Seventh Seal’, ‘Wild Strawberries’ and ‘The Virgin Spring’ to name but a few masterpieces the pairing produced. It was here Von Sydow perfected his craft and began to display the great talent that has spanned the 53 years of his screen career. Von Sydow now dominated the screen as he had done on stage and in doing so became an idol of the international Arthouse and easily Sweden’s greatest actor. Recognition came as early as 1954 when he was awarded the prestigious Royal Foundation Culture Award.

Von Sydow married in 1951 to actress Kerstin Olin with whom he had two sons, Claes and Henrik. They were to star with their father in the 1966 film ‘Hawaii’ playing his son at different ages. Max was divorced in 1996 but got remarried to French filmmaker Catherine Brelet in April 1997 in Provence, France.

Max worked profusely on stage and screen in Scandinavia and resisted increasing calls from America to come to Hollywood. After being seen in Bergman’s Oscar-winning films and having been first choice for the title role of ‘Dr. No’, Max finally set foot in America after agreeing to star in the film which was to lead to much greater recognition – the role of Christ in George Steven’s modestly titled, all-star 1965 epic ‘The Greatest Story Ever Told’. His talents were soon in demand in other American productions and so Max and his family moved to Los Angeles.

From 1965 von Sydow became a regular on the American screen while also maintaining a healthy presence in his native Sweden. Though perhaps type-cast as a villain, he gave of his best in every production and was duly rewarded stateside with two Golden Globe nominations for ‘Hawaii’ (1966) and ‘The Exorcist’ (1973).

In the mid 70s, von Sydow moved to Rome and appeared in a number of Italian films, becoming friendly with another screen legend, Marcello Mastrioanni.

Max’s career is too long to go into detail here and while he has given dozens of award-worthy performances he has had some ‘keynote’ films for which he has received recognition. He won the Pasinetti Award at the Venice Film Festival for ‘The Flight of the Eagle’ (1982) but this was to be his only major movie award until what one might describe as the ‘renaissance’ of his career.

In 1987 Max celebrated his success in ‘Pelle the Conqueror’. He received his first Oscar nomination as well as winning the Bodil Prize, The Felix European Film Award, The Robert Award and the Guldbagge Award from his native Sweden (amazingly, the first time he was even nominated for the award). He also recieved special mention when 'Pelle' garnered the Palme d’Or at Cannes.

Since then Max has won The Australian Film Institute Best Actor Award for his title role in ‘Father’ (1990), the Guldbagge Best Best Director Award for his only directorial foray ‘Katinka’ (1989), based on a favourite novel by Herman Bang, and the Best Actor Award at The Tokyo International Film Festival in 1992 for ‘The Silent Touch’.

It wasn't long before von Sydow had another Scandanavian success. He received international acclaim for his performance as the 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 1998 Max gave another great performance (though sadly not recognised) in Liv Ullmann’s ‘Private Confessions’.

Since then he has taken ‘a bit of a sabbatical’ – his most recent triumph being his moving performance as an elderly lawyer in Scott Hick’s ‘Snow Falling on Cedars’, released in the US at the end of 1999. Pre-Oscar talk had him tipped to scoop the Best Supporting Actor Award, which sadly never came to fruition. In 2002 Max had one of his largest commercial sucesses, co-starring with Tom Cruise in Steven Speilberg's widely acclaimed sci-fi thriller 'Minority Report'.

Max currently lives with his wife in Paris, where he enjoys reading, listening to music and gardening. He has personally stated he does not intend to retire, subject to the film roles he receives.

Campbell Price 2002