Antonius

The blond fellow on the right in the above picture is one Max von Sydow, born this day 1929 in Lund, Sweden. Born into a fairly wealthy family consisting of a professor father, and a mother that was a school teacher, our boy Max managed to get himself accepted into, and trained at the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Sweden from 1948 to 1951. It was in 1955 that he was to meet the man who would make him famous, and who would put in the film that the picture above is taken from, that man was Ingmar Bergman, and Max would make several films at his direction. The best one of the bunch, in my opinion, is "The Seventh Seal" and that is our hero Max in the photo about to begin his famous game of chess with Death. It all ends in tears, as these sorts of things are wont to do, but it is one fine film. After being noticed in Bergman's films, von Sydow was offered the title role in "Dr. No" a role he did not take, but Hollywood called, and his first role was as Jesus in "The Greatest Story Ever Told." He went onto a fantastic acting career appearing in such films as "Minority Report," "Never Say Never Again," "Dune," "The Exorcist," "Snow Falling on Cedars," and "Conan the Barbarian" to name just a few. He is fluent in a number of languages, and is one damn fine actor. He has a great ability to play a villain, and to do it well. Any idiot can play the hero, it takes a truly skilled actor to play a really good villain. Though it is as the "hero" of "The Seventh Seal" that I will always remember him as, and it is for that role, and for the six decade long career on stage, TV, and the big screen that Max von Sydow (April 10th, 1929-present), you are my (229th) hero of the day.