Seventh Seal & Exorcist Actor Max von Sydow Dies At 90

Actor Max von Sydow died Sunday, March 8 at the age of 90. Born in Lund, Sweden on April 10, 1929, Sydow studied at the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm before making his screen debut in Alf Sjöberg's drama Only a Mother in 1949. He would go on to meet Ingmar Bergman in 1955 and made his name starring in a string of films from the legendary director, beginning with the European arthouse classics The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries in 1957. Sydow would go on to work on more than 160 films, TV shows, and video games over the course of his career, achieving international fame along the way.

In addition to his Bergman movies, Sydow was famous for starring in The Exorcist in 1973, receiving a Gold Globe nod for his supporting performance as the aging Father Merrin in William Friedkin's supernatural horror classic. He was also nominated for a pair of acting Oscars for his turns in Billie August's 1987 period drama Pelle the Conquerer and Stephen Daldry's Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, a drama about a boy dealing with his father's death in the September 11th terrorist attacks released in 2011. The actor became a French citizen later in life, receiving the Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres in 2005 and being named a Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur in 2012.

Deadline has confirmed the actor's death with his international representatives. His widow, Catherine von Sydow, has issued a statement about the news, saying “It is with a broken heart and with infinite sadness that we have the extreme pain of announcing the departure of Max von Sydow, on March 8, 2020”. He also had four children, including a pair of sons with his first wife, the late actress Christina Inga Britta Olin, prior to his marriage to Catherine Brelet in 1997.

Sydow continued to act in films, TV series, and video games up until the final year of his life. Over the last two decades alone, he costarred in movies directed by Steven Spielberg (Minority Report), Martin Scorsese (Shutter Island), and Ridley Scott (Robin Hood 2010), in addition to appearing in Julian Schnabel's acclaimed biographical drama The Diving Bell and the Butterfly in 2007. He subsequently voiced the Ghostbusters II villain Vigo the Carpathian in 2009's Ghostbusters: The Video Game and Esbern in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim in 2011. On the TV side, Sydow portrayed Cardinal Von Waldburg in Showtime's The Tudors in the late 2000s and voiced Klaus Ziegler on a 2014 episode of The Simpsons.

In more recent years, Sydow made a brief appearance as Lor San Tekka at the very beginning of Star Wars: The Force Awakens (a part he also voiced in the LEGO video game version) and took over the role of the mystical Three-Eyed Raven for season 6 of Game of Thrones. Far from being a newer addition to the world of geek pop culture, Sydow played Ming the Merciless in the cult classic Flash Gordon live-action movie in 1980 and went on to tackle supporting roles in John Milius' Conan the Barbarian and David Lynch's Dune a few years later. There's no denying the variety in his projects nor his gravitas as a performer over an incredible career that truly left an impact on not just Hollywood, but the larger world of international cinema.

Rest In Peace Max Von Sydow: April 10, 1929 - March 8, 2020