THE BOY FROM DEATH IN VENICE
What happened to Björn Andrésen?
The inspiration for the object of Aschenbach’s infatuation in Thomas Mann’s Death In Venice was acknowledged by the author some years after publication, and the subject of a biography a century later (‘The Real Tadzio’ by Gilbert Adair).
He was a Polish boy the writer ogled from a distance in 1911 while holidaying with his wife at the Grand Hotel des Bains in Venice. Less is known of the teenager who played the role in Luchino Visconti’s 1971 film of Mann’s novel. For years the director trawled the Continent in pursuit of the right actor for the part. It was a search that had eluded the other major directors who had attempted to bring the book to the screen: John Huston, Joseph Losey, Franco Zeffirelli. Visconti finally found 15-year-old Björn Andrésen in Stockholm. Alain Delon said that if Visconti recruited you for a role, it was because he knew what he would be getting, even if you didn’t. Andrésen, with virtually…