Talented musician and actor, Björn Andrésen, has been confirmed dead at the age of 70. His passing occurred on October 25, 2025, and was formally announced by the film directors of his 2021 documentary, The Most Beautiful Boy in the World, Kristian Petri and Kristina Lindström, through the Dagens Nyheter newspaper.
Born on January 26th, 1955, in Stockholm, Sweden, Björn Andrésen’s acting career started when he was only 14 years old, landing a minor role in A Swedish Love Story. His grandmother, who had been raising him since the age of 10 after his mother’s suicide, was determined to make him a celebrity. It was not until a year later, in 1971, when Andrésen landed his big break in Luchino Visconti’s Death in Venice, in which he played the extraordinary 14-year-old Tadzio, whom the main character, Aschenbach, was obsessed with. This role, despite forever earning him a spot in cinematic history, also tainted the public perception of him for as long as he would live.
In the audition tape, Andrésen is seen smiling and parading around the room at the order of Visconti. He was also made to undress to his trunks, and shifted awkwardly as he was inspected and photographed by all the adults in the room. After being cast, he was denied a script, forbidden from reading the original book, and warned to never disobey Visconti after it was discovered he had broken that rule.
His treatment on the film was, unsurprisingly, less than acceptable. Every moment Andrésen was on camera was spent objectifying him, and treating him like an “exotic animal in a cage”, Andrésen would later comment himself. This was shown even through the character of Tadzio, who is, “seductive from beginning to end” according to one disapproving review in The New York Times.
Dirk Bogarde, the actor who played Aschenbach, described the young co-star as “absolutely extraordinary,” but also mentioned how the director would “never allow him to go in the sun, kick a football about with his companions, swim in the polluted sea, or do anything that might have given him the smallest degree of pleasure.” He remarked that the boy marched onto set every morning like a “lamb to the slaughter.”
Even after the filming of the movie, more humiliation was to come for the young actor. He was bombarded by paparazzi at the premiere in Cannes. “It felt like swarms of bats around me,” Andrésen said in his documentary, “It was a living nightmare.” That same year, Visconti would famously name him the most beautiful boy in the world at their separate premiere in London. While initially intended as a mere promotional tool, the title would stick with Andrésen for the rest of his life, forever intertwining his name to the single movie that traumatized him.
The movie was an immediate hit, catapulting the young boy into international stardom almost overnight. In Japan, his popularity was record high, and it did not take long before he visited Japan as one of the first Western Idols. Andrésen’s face was plastered on billboards, newspapers, and posters, as well as appearing in Japanese commercials, all while he was sedated by unidentified pills supplied by his handlers in order to cope with the grueling schedule.
It was also during this time in Japan where Andrésen’s influence stretched from the screen to page. His beauty had managed to inspire a number of mangakas, who took his face as a reference to some of the most iconic characters in Shoujo fiction. He also produced a number of songs in Japanese, including To Love/Forest of Snow. Though today most of his music is not very popular despite his lifelong passion for it.
During adulthood, Andrésen suffered from drug addiction, depression, and alcoholism, as well as the loss of his second child, a nine-month-old named Elvin, from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Despite his hardships, he continued to act on and off in Swedish films, studied drama, ran a small theatre in Stockholm, and played music professionally. His role of Tadzio also continued to haunt him, with a photograph of him at the age of 15 appearing on the cover of The Boy in 2003. He commented, “I have a feeling of being utilized that is close to distasteful.”
In 2019, Andrésen accepted the role of an elderly man in Midsommar, who volunteers to be a human sacrifice by stepping off a cliff. When the cliff does not kill him, a bystander finishes the job with a mallet to his face. The icon also continues to be appealing to the youth of today as well, as a Freshman at ERHS named Gabrielle M. saying that he was “very cute, and androgynous.”
Björn Andrésen is survived by his daughter, Robine Roman, as his legacy continues to be remembered as a reminder of how child actors are exploited, perhaps even to the point of overshadowing his own talents. In the trailer of The Most Beautiful Boy in the World, Andrésen comments that he “does not die” but instead disappears, which may have been what he longed to do ever since stepping in front of the camera in 1971.
