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Bjorn Andersen, known as the world's most beautiful boy, has died aged 70 after a battle with cancer. The Swedish actor, recognised for his performance in Luchino Visconti's 1971 award-winning 'Death in Venice', passed away on Saturday from cancer, Kristina Lindstrom, who directed a documentary about his life, said, adding they had 'learned about it from his daughter'. Lindstrom called Andresen a 'courageous' person for sharing the difficulties of his life with the public. 'It's a particular situation when you spend so much time together over so many years. Even though I knew he was ill, it's still a type of dismay,' she said. At the age of 15, Andresen was approached by Visconti, who was searching for an actor to play Tadzio, a beautiful adolescent who composer Gustav von Aschenbach, played by Dirk Bogarde, becomes obsessed with in Death in Venice. Andresen's role in the famous Franco-Italian film, which earned him the epithet 'the most beautiful boy in the world,' propelled him to worldwide fame. After the premiere of 'Death in Venice,' Visconti took him to a gay club with a group of men, where he 'guzzled' down alcohol to numb his feeling of loneliness, he told newspaper Expressen in 2021. 'I had no problems during the filming. But once it was over, I felt like a piece of meat thrown to the wolves. Physically, nothing happened to me, but it was very unpleasant still,' he told the newspaper. 'It was extremely uncomfortable,' he described the outing. 'I think [Visconti] was testing me to see if I was gay.' He recalled drinking himself in a stupor 'just to shut it out' but it was too late to turn a blind eye to his newfound status as a sex symbol and - for some - a gay icon. After Death in Venice, the then-young actor was inundated with bags of fan mail from besotted teenagers and grown men alike. Bjorn condemned Visconti, who died in 1976, as a 'cultural predator' who allegedly exploited his looks and sexualised him to promote the movie -before throwing him to the wolves. The moniker became a millstone around Bjorn's neck, as the actor admitted Death in Venice remained the unmoving grey cloud that totally eclipsed his life. The following year, during a trip to Japan, he was encouraged to use drugs to dare to sing in front of an audience, according to Swedish media. Five decades after Visconti hailed his Tadzio as the world's most beautiful boy, Bjorn was relegated to life of relative obscurity - marked also by a profound personal sadness and mental health struggles. In 2021, it was reported that Bjorn was living alone in a squalid flat, chain smoking and bickering with his long-suffering, on-off girlfriend and getting into trouble with his landlord for leaving his gas stove on. He also looked world's away from the fresh-faced teenager that inspired a generation of manga artists and became one of Japan's first Western idols, with Bjorn sporting a perpetually nicotine-stained beard and long, flowing white hair. Born on January 26, 1955, in Stockholm, he grew up without a father and his mother committed suicide when he was 10. He was then raised by his grandparents. His bohemian mother had never told him the identity of his father and, before her death, made no secret that she wanted more from life than being mother to Björn and his half-sister. Growing up, Bjorn had no interest in acting and wanted, instead, to be a musician but his grandmother continued to send him to auditions in the hope that at least one of her grandchildren would become famous. That was how Bjorn found himself standing before Visconti, whose search for Tadzio's 'pure beauty' had taken him across Europe - but to no avail. A documentary about Bjorn's life - titled 'The Most Beautiful Boy in the World' - includes black-and-white footage of his audition for Death in Venice in a room full of young boys and casting directors. 'How old is he? Older right?' Visconti asks a Swedish-speaking casting director as Andrésen poses self-consciously for them at a casting call in Stockholm one chilly day in February 1970. 'Yes, a little. He's fifteen,' the casting director replies. 'Fifteen? Very beautiful,' Visconti observes. 'Could you ask him to undress?' Bjorn, visibly taken aback, eventually strips down to his trunks, as a photographer snaps away and a delighted Visconti makes clear he has found exactly what he was looking for. Looking back on his audition, Bjorn told Variety, Visconti 'sexualised me' and admitted he 'wasn't comfortable' taking his clothes off. 'When they asked me to take off my shirt, I wasn't comfortable,' he said. 'I wasn't prepared for that. 'I remember when he posed me with one foot against the wall, I would never stand like that. When I watch it now, I see how that son of a b**** sexualised me.' The 15-year-old was signed to the film and paid $4,000 for his role in Death in Venice - one that, he had no idea, would define him for the rest of his life. Back in Europe, he continued acting but struggled to shake off his 'world's most beautiful boy' moniker. In 1976, he came to Paris for a film. It never came to anything but he stayed a year despite being penniless. His lifestyle was funded by a string of rich men who showered him with expensive meals, gave him a 500-franc weekly allowance and even provided him with a flat, a 2021 documentary revealed, as Bjorn admitted he was 'bloody naive' about their intentions towards him. 'I must have been bloody naive because it was sort of like: 'Wow! Everyone's so nice,' ' he reflected. 'I don't think they treated me out of the kindness of their heart ... I felt like [a] wandering trophy.' While the documentary doesn't explore Bjorn's own sexuality, he previously told The Daily Mail he felt a fleeting confusion about his sexuality in his 20s and had one homosexual experience. 'I did it more or less to be able to say I'd tried it but it's not really my cup of tea. It wasn't more serious than that,' he said at the time. Bjorn maintained he had always been attracted to women, but struggled to form relationships with them as he grew older. After growing used to clicking his fingers and having girls come running, he admitted he never learnt how to flirt. Even so, he married a poet named Suzanna Roman after they had a daughter, Robine, in 1984. However, tragedy again struck three years later when their nine-month-old son Elvin, died. Bjorn had been lying in bed beside him, insensible after a night out drinking, while his wife took their daughter to kindergarten. Bjorn fell into a deep depression after Elvin's death as he blamed himself for being an inadequate father. 'Their diagnosis is sudden infant death syndrome but my diagnosis is lack of love,' he said in the documentary. 'I descended into depression, alcohol, self-destruction in all ways imaginable - it was an ego trip. Poor me, me, me.' He disappeared from public view so completely that some thought he was dead until he re-emerged in 2003, when a photo of him was used to illustrate the front cover of The Beautiful Boy, Germaine Greer's ode to the beauty of young boys. Bjorn publicly complained he'd never given permission and said, having been exposed to it, adult lust - by men or women - for adolescents was nothing to celebrate. In 2019, he had a role in Ari Aster's horror movie 'Midsommar', where he played the role of the elderly Dan.
