Max Carl Adolf von Sydow, (b April 10, 1929) is an award-winning Swedish-born actor, known in particular for his collaboration with filmmaker Ingmar Bergman. He has performed in movies filmed in many languages, including Swedish, English, Italian, German, Danish, and Spanish.

Max von Sydow as Ernst Stavro Blofeld in ‘Never Say Never Again’.

Von Sydow was born to a wealthy family in Lund, Skåne, Sweden. He attended the Cathedral School of Lund, and learned German and English starting at the age of nine. At school, he and some friends founded an amateur theatre company, where his acting career began. He completed National Service before going on to study at The Royal Dramatic Theatre (”Dramaten”) in Stockholm, where he trained between 1948 and 1951.

Von Sydow moved to Malmö in 1955. It was there that he met his mentor Ingmar Bergman. His first work with Bergman was on stage at Malmö Municipal Theatre. Von Sydow later would work with Bergman on films such as The Seventh Seal (Det Sjunde inseglet, 1957), Wild Strawberries (Smultronstället, 1957) and The Virgin Spring (Jungfrukällan, 1960). In The Seventh Seal, von Sydow is the knight who plays a chess game with Death to buy time for his companions—a scene and a film which were both breakthroughs for the director.

It was in these films that von Sydow perfected his craft and began to display the great talent that has spanned the 53 years of his screen career. Von Sydow now dominated the screen as he had done on stage and in doing so became an idol of the international Arthouse. Recognition came as early as 1954 when he was awarded the prestigious Royal Foundation Culture Award.

Von Sydow worked profusely on stage and screen in Scandinavia and resisted increasing calls from the United States to go to Hollywood. After being seen in Bergman’s Academy Award-winning films and having been first choice for the title role of Dr No, Von Sydow finally set foot in America after agreeing to star in the film which was to lead to much greater recognition, the role of Jesus in George Stevens’ grandly titled, all-star epic The Greatest Story Ever Told in 1965. His talents were soon in demand in other American productions and so von Sydow and his family eventually moved to Los Angeles.

Von Sydow was Ernst Stavro Blofeld in the unofficial Bond film, Never Say Never Again.