imdb: Documentary on Luchino Visconti’s travels and auditions in search for a young actor to portray the role of Tadzio in his adaptation of Thomas Mann’s novella “Death in Venice”, finally choosing Swedish actor Björn Andrésen.

Björn Johan Andrésen (born 26 January 1955) is a Swedish actor and musician, best known for playing the fourteen-year-old Tadzio in Luchiano Visconti’s Death in Venice. 

 Andrésen plays keyboard in his days with the Sevn Erics.

Quotes

“It’s very different now, but you can see why most actors would avoid homosexual roles….After I was in ‘Death in Venice,’ so many papers in America wrote that I was homosexual. All from one movie! I kept having to say no, no, which makes me sound desperate or prejudiced…So I think for me I’m better being far away from all that.”[http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001909/bio Source of quotations] ] “

“I was just sixteen and Visconti and the team took me to a gay nightclub. Almost all the crew were gay. The waiters at the club made me feel very uncomfortable. They looked at me uncompromisingly as if I was a nice meaty dish. I knew I couldn’t react. It would have been social suicide. But it was the first of many such encounters.”[http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001909/bio Source of quotations] ] “

“My career is one of the few that started at the absolute top and then worked its way down. That was lonely.” [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001909/bio Source of quotations] ] “

(Source: bjornandresen)