Bjorn Andreessen’s Death: The Unforgettable Tadzio Luchino Visconti Was 70 in Death in Venice

Tadzio is no more. Swedish actor Björn Andresen, who at age 15 Luchino Visconti portrayed in his masterpiece Death in Venice as a diaphanous and androgynous teenager obsessed with Dirk Bogarde, has died at the age of 70. The causes of his death are unknown.

Described by the Italian master as “the most beautiful boy in the world”, this label sticks to Bjorn Andreessen’s skin, leading to despair and later telling how his negative experience with Visconti affected the rest of his life and career.

Orphaned by his mother – she killed herself when he was 10 – Bjorn Andresen was raised by his grandmother, who later pushed him to become a model and actress. “Because he wanted someone famous in the family” An interested person would say years later.

“I knew I couldn’t react.”

In 1970, Luchino Visconti traveled Europe looking for someone to play Tadzio in his adaptation of Thomas Mann’s story Death in Venice. He was hypnotized by Bjorn Andreessen’s beauty. When the film was released, presented at the Cannes Film Festival (and awarded the Palme d’Or), Björn Andresen became a star. In Japan, she rose to icon status almost instantly.

An orbit that is in truth very violent for her, especially since Visconti, a homosexual, does not hesitate to take her to a gay nightclub, even though she is only 16 years old. “I knew I couldn’t react. It would have been social suicide. But it was the first in a long series of such encounters.” Andresen would later say.

Away from the set, Andresen primarily pursued a musical career and became a successful pianist and musician. Still, he continued to film, starring in more than 30 films and TV series, mostly shot in Sweden. A career on screen without much conviction on his part, from which arose, for example, a small role in Ari Astaire’s excellent film Midsommar.

In 2021, he made an excellent documentary, Visconti’s Blonde Angel – Bjorn Andresen, from boy to actor, directed by Christina Lindström and Christian Petri. He had the opportunity to leave the career he considered “chaotic” : “My career is one of the few that started at an absolute peak and then gradually declined. It was a lonely experience.” he said.