Bengt Ekerot

Nils Bengt Folke Ekerot was a Swedish actor and stage director born in Stockholm on 8 February 1920. He is best known internationally for his portrayal of Death in Ingmar Bergman's 1957 film The Seventh Seal, and his career encompassed significant work in both European cinema and the theater on both sides of the Atlantic, including a Broadway appearance in 1962.

Ekerot's most celebrated screen role came through his collaboration with Bergman, in which he played Death as a white-faced figure in a black cloak. The distinctive appearance was the result of a shared creative decision between actor and director. As Bergman later described in his autobiography Images: My Life in Film, the two men agreed that Death should be rendered as a fusion of a clown mask and a skull. Ekerot returned to work with Bergman the following year in The Magician, released in 1958 and also known by its Swedish title Ansiktet, meaning "The Face," in which he played Johan Spegel, an ailing vaudevillian.

His contributions to the stage were equally notable. In 1956, Ekerot directed the world premiere of Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night, a production widely regarded as the definitive staging of O'Neill's most celebrated work. He subsequently brought his theatrical career to New York, appearing on Broadway in 1962 in the play The Father.

Ekerot died on 26 November 1971 from lung cancer. Health problems stemming from smoking and excessive drinking had affected his career in his later years, resulting in the loss of potential roles.