‘Death in Venice’ Star Once Called ‘The Most Beautiful Boy in the World’ Dies at 70
Björn Andrésen, the Swedish actor and musician who became famous as a teenager in the 1971 film Death in Venice, has died at 70.
His death was confirmed by Kristian Petri, co-director of the 2021 documentary The Most Beautiful Boy in the World, who told the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter. The cause of death was not shared.
Andrésen was only 15 when he was cast by Italian director Luchino Visconti in Death in Venice, based on the 1912 novella by Thomas Mann.
He played Tadzio, a beautiful young boy who becomes the object of an older man’s obsession. During the premiere, Visconti famously called him “the most beautiful boy in the world,” a label that stuck with him for the rest of his life and one he later said caused him great pain.
In interviews over the years, Andrésen spoke about how that sudden fame affected him deeply.
He said Visconti once took him to a gay nightclub when he was only 16, surrounded by older men. “The waiters at the club … looked at me uncompromisingly as if I was a nice meaty dish,” he said. “I knew I couldn’t react. It would have been social suicide. But it was the first of many such encounters.”
After the film’s release, Andrésen said Visconti never contacted him again. He later told The Guardian that being called “the most beautiful” made him feel trapped. “I felt like an exotic animal in a cage,” he said in 2003. In another interview with The Guardian four years ago, he said he would have told Visconti to “f*** off” if he were still alive, calling the director “the sort of cultural predator who would sacrifice anything or anyone for the work.”
He was open about how the experience shaped his life. “Death in Venice scr**** up my life quite decently,” he said, adding that he hated being remembered for only that one film.
Though most people knew him for his looks and early fame, Andrésen was also a talented musician. He played piano, wrote songs, and even became a pop star in Japan in the 1970s. He performed and toured with the Swedish dance band Sven Erics.
His personal life was often difficult. He had two children with his ex-wife, poet Susanna Roman, a daughter, Robine, and a son, Elvin, who died of sudden infant death syndrome at just nine months old. Andrésen was reportedly lying next to his son when it happened, after a night of drinking. The loss sent him into a long period of grief and heavy alcohol use.
Despite everything, Andrésen continued acting. He appeared in more than 30 films and TV shows over the years, including a small role in Ari Aster’s 2019 horror movie Midsommar.
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