Biography
A longtime friend of Swedish filmmaker
Ingmar Bergman, actor Erland Josephson starred in six of the director's best films, including
The Passion of Anna (1970),
Cries and Whispers (1972),
Scenes From a Marriage (1973), and
Fanny and Alexander (1982). In these films and others, the aristocratic Josephson came to embody one type of Bergman protagonist: the modern neurotic man, aloof, introspective, and thoroughly self-centered. Writing under the nom de plume of Buntel Erik, Josephson co-scripted
The Pleasure Garden (1961) with Bergman and All These Women (1964), and under his own name has penned several novels, poems and plays. Active in films outside his native Sweden, Josephson's most famous non-Bergman film role was in the U.S. production
The Unbearable Lightness of Being; he also played a prominent part in
Peter Greenaway's
Prospero's Books (1991). From 1966 through 1975, Josephson was in charge of Stockholm's Royal Dramatic Theater. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide