This is what Björn Andrésen, the actor who was “the most beautiful boy in the world”, looked like before he died

Björn Andrésen He died on Saturday at the age of 70. His fame of “most beautiful boy in the world” He earned it back in the seventies, when he became known for the film Death in Venice.

Taking into account that the beauty of this 70-year-old artist was the moderator of his fame, how did the passage of time feel to him, then, once he disappeared from the media sphere?

His last major performance takes us to 2019, in Ari Aster’s horror film Midsummerwhere he made a brief appearance as Elder Dan.

Then we have to jump to 2022, when a fan took a photo with him in the Netherlands and, unknowingly, recorded one of his last public appearances.

Björn Andrésen died: what happened to him

The news of Björn Andrésen’s death on Saturday was confirmed this Monday to AFP by the co-director of a documentary dedicated to his life.

Andrésen en el film «Midsummer» (2019).

When he was 15 years old, the actor was hired by the Italian director Luchino Viscontiwho was looking for a perfect young man to play Let’s seea teenager whose beauty obsesses the character played by Dirk Bogarde.

«We found out from his daughter» that he had died of cancer, he said Kristina Lindströmwhich together with Christian Petri In 2021, he directed a documentary about the life of the Swedish actor called «The Most Beautiful Boy in the World», his nickname after the success of the film.

Who was Björn Andrésen?

Björn Andrésen, born in Stockholm in 1955, was a Swedish actor and musician who achieved worldwide fame at the age of 15 thanks to Visconti’s aforementioned masterpiece, Death in Venice.

One of the last photos of the actor, in 2022. Source: @bjorn_andresensource

In it he played Let’s seethe adolescent of ideal beauty who obsesses the protagonist, an elderly composer played by Dirk Bogarde. The film made him the symbol of an ethereal and unattainable youth, and the press dubbed him “the most beautiful boy in the world.”

However, that label would mark the rest of his life. Andrésen later confessed that he felt reified and exposed since his adolescence, unable to control the way his image was exploited.

Fame was short-lived for Björn Andrésen.

Sudden fame led him to travel through Europe and Japan, where he worked as a model and singer, while trying to escape Tadzio’s shadow. His mother had committed suicide when he was barely 10 years old, a tragedy that added weight to an existence marked by melancholy.

Over the decades, Björn remained active in film and music, although he never again achieved the impact of his debut.

His story was revisited in the documentary The Most Beautiful Boy in the World (2021), where he himself narrated the invisible wounds of that early fame.