‘Death in Venice’ Actor Once Dubbed ‘The Most Beautiful Boy in the World,’ Dies at 70

Björn Andrésen, the Swedish actor who became world-famous as a teenager for his role in Death in Venice, has died at the age of 70. His death was confirmed by Kristian Petri, the co-director of The Most Beautiful Boy in the World, a 2021 documentary about Andrésen’s life.

Petri told the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter about the news, though no cause of death was given.

Andrésen was only 15 when Italian filmmaker Luchino Visconti cast him in Death in Venice, an adaptation of a story by German author Thomas Mann.

In the film, he played Tadzio, a beautiful young boy who becomes the focus of an older man’s desire. At the movie’s premiere, Visconti famously called him “the most beautiful boy in the world.” The label followed him for the rest of his life, something Andrésen later said made him feel trapped and uncomfortable.

In interviews over the years, he spoke openly about how fame at such a young age affected him. He recalled being taken by Visconti to a gay nightclub when he was only 16. “The waiters at the club … looked at me uncompromisingly as if I was a nice meaty dish,” he once said, describing how uneasy he felt. “I knew I couldn’t react. It would have been social suicide. But it was the first of many such encounters.”

Andrésen said he never heard from Visconti again after the film was released. He later told The Guardian that the nickname and the attention made him feel like “an exotic animal in a cage.” In another interview, he said that if the director were still alive, he would have told him to “f*** off,” calling him “the sort of cultural predator who would sacrifice anything or anyone for the work.”

Despite the fame, Andrésen’s life after Death in Venice was far from glamorous. He struggled with depression and alcohol for years and once said the film “scr*** up my life quite decently.” Still, he went on to build a long career in film and television, appearing in more than 30 projects, including a small part in Ari Aster’s 2019 horror movie Midsommar.

Apart from acting, Andrésen was also a musician. He was a skilled pianist and even became a pop star in Japan in the 1970s. He toured with the Swedish dance band Sven Erics, showing his talent beyond the film world.

His personal life, however, was marked by tragedy. He and his ex-wife, poet Susanna Roman, had two children, a daughter, Robine, and a son, Elvin. Their son died of sudden infant death syndrome when he was just nine months old, an event that deeply affected Andrésen and led him into a period of heavy drinking and despair.

In later years, Andrésen reflected on how his early fame had defined him, but he also seemed to make peace with it. He once described his life and career as “chaos,” yet his story remained one of the most haunting in the history of cinema, a reminder of the price that can come with being idolized too young.

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