Max von Sydow was born Carl Adolf von Sydow on April 10, 1929, in Lund, Skåne, Sweden, to a middle-class family of partial German ancestry. His parents were Baroness Maria Margareta Rappe, a teacher, and Carl Wilhelm von Sydow, an ethnologist and folklore professor. He was the son of a baron, and his surname reflects his German heritage.
Growing up, Max was encouraged to explore his interest in acting through a theatre club he started with friends, including Yvonne Lombard, while in high school. After completing his education, he was conscripted and later attended the Royal Dramatic Theatre's acting school from 1948 to 1951, alongside Lars Ekborg, Margaretha Krook, and Ingrid Thulin. His first role was as Nils the crofter in Alf Sjöberg's Only a Mother in 1949.
Max's career in Sweden began with work at the city theatres in Norrköping and Malmö. He gained international recognition through his collaborations with Ingmar Bergman, particularly in The Seventh Seal in 1957, which featured iconic scenes where he played chess with Death. This led to offers from abroad, and he started working in Hollywood with roles such as Jesus in The Greatest Story Ever Told in 1965, Hawaii in 1966, and The Quiller Memorandum in 1966.
Throughout his career, Max has played a wide range of characters, including Karl Oskar Nilsson in The Emigrants in 1971, Father Lankester Merrin in The Exorcist in 1973, Joubert the assassin in Three Days of the Condor in 1975, Emperor Ming in Flash Gordon in 1980, Ernst Stavro Blofeld in Never Say Never Again in 1983, Liet-Kynes in Dune in 1984, Frederick in Hannah and Her Sisters in 1986, Lassefar in Pelle the Conqueror in 1987, Dr. Peter Ingham in Awakenings in 1990, Lamar Burgess in Minority Report in 2002, and The Renter in Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close in 2011.
Max von Sydow received his first Academy Award nomination for his role in Pelle the Conqueror in 1987 and his second nomination for Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close in 2011. He has also won the Guldbagge Award for Best Director for his directing debut, Ved vejen in 1988. In 2016, he joined the sixth season of the HBO series Game of Thrones as the Three-eyed Raven, earning him a Primetime Emmy Award nomination.
Max von Sydow passed away on March 8, 2020, in Provence, France, at the age of 90, leaving behind his wife Catherine Brelet and four children.
