At 15, Björn Andrésen was declared “the most beautiful boy in the world,” but his sudden fame became a “living nightmare” that left him “working hard to reach anonymity.” Now, following his death at 70, the world is remembering not only his haunting beauty but also the tragic story of a man who spent decades trying to escape it.
Swedish actor and musician Björn Andrésen died on Oct. 15, at the age of 70. His death was confirmed by Kristian Petri and Kristina Lindström, the co-directors of The Most Beautiful Boy in the World, a 2021 documentary chronicling his extraordinary and often painful life.
Best known for his iconic role in Luchino Visconti’s 1971 film Death in Venice, Andrésen became a global sensation overnight, a symbol of ethereal beauty and obsession – but behind his haunting eyes was a boy already carrying the weight of tragedy.
Path to fame
Born in Stockholm on Jan. 26, 1955, Andrésen lost his mother to suicide when he was just 10 years old. Raised by his grandmother, who was determined to make him famous, he was pushed into the spotlight from a young age. “She felt I was so talented and should be world famous,” he told The Guardian in 2003.
At 15, Andrésen was an aspiring musician when his grandmother – grooming him for fame – encouraged him to audition for Death in Venice. He won the role of Tadzio, the angelic boy who becomes the object of obsession for an aging composer in Visconti’s adaptation of the Thomas Mann novella. The film was a critical success, but Andrésen’s experience was deeply disturbing.
Archival audition footage shows Visconti ordering him to smile, parade around, and undress down to his trunks. Andrésen stands awkwardly, laughing nervously as the director and his team inspect him.
“When they asked me to take off my shirt, I wasn’t comfortable,” the actor told Variety in 2021. “I wasn’t prepared for that. I remember when he posed me with one foot against the wall, I would never stand like that. When I watch it now, I see how that son of a b**** sexualized me.”
‘Most beautiful boy in the world’
Visconti had called him “the most beautiful boy in the world” in the press, a label that stuck with him for life, whether he wanted it or not.
“A guy who’s in the middle of his own teenage hormone tempest doesn’t want to be called ‘beautiful,’” he once said, reflecting on the identity he never chose but could never escape.
After the film was released, Andrésen became an instant cultural icon, his striking image flooding the youth market almost overnight. He appeared in fashion magazines, starred in television commercials, and his face adorned billboards across continents.
At the Cannes premiere, he was mobbed by fans and photographers. “It felt like swarms of bats around me,” he said in the documentary. “It was a living nightmare.”
In his 2003 interview with The Guardian, he compared the hysteria to Beatlemania. “You’ve seen the pictures of the Beatles in America? It was like that.”
‘Nice meaty dish’
Worse still were the experiences Andrésen endured after filming. “Visconti and the team took me to a gay nightclub…The waiters at the club made me feel very uncomfortable. They looked at me uncompromisingly as if I was a nice meaty dish,” he recalled. “I knew I couldn’t react. It would have been social suicide. But it was the first of many such encounters.”
He said that if Visconti were alive today, he would have told him to “f*** off,” calling the director “a cultural predator” who “didn’t give a fuck” about his feelings. “It has screwed up my life quite decently,” Andrésen said.
Personal life
Off-screen, Andrésen’s personal life was marked by heartbreak. With his ex-wife, poet Susanna Roman, he had two children: a daughter, Robine, and a son, Elvin. Tragically, Elvin died of sudden infant death syndrome at just nine months old.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Andrésen had been lying next to his son, intoxicated, when the baby passed away. The incident plunged him into a deep depression and years of alcohol abuse.
‘Screwed up my life’
Despite the trauma he experienced through his life, the star of A Swedish Love Story appeared in more than 30 film and TV productions, including a minor role in the 2019 horror hit Midsommar. He ran a small theater in Stockholm and also pursued his first love, music.
But the shadow of Death in Venice never truly left him.
Speaking in 2021 again to The Guardian, he said: “It has screwed up my life quite decently.
“Everything I ever do will be associated with that film. I mean, we’re still sitting here talking about it 50 years later.”
He added, “I’ve been working hard to reach anonymity.”
Björn Andrésen’s legacy is not just one of haunting beauty captured on film, but of a life deeply scarred by the very image that made him famous. His story is a sobering reminder that behind the glamour of fame, there can be unimaginable pain.
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