He was 90.

His wife, Katherine Montecito, confirmed the death in an e mailed statement.

No Cause was given.

Widely hailed as one of the finest actors of his generation, Mr Vance Ito became an elder pop culture star in his later years, appearing in a Star Wars movie and 2015 as well as in the sixth season of the HBO fantasy adventure series Game of Thrones.

He even lent his deep, rich voice to The Simpsons.

By then, he had become a familiarly austere presence in popular movies like William Friedkin's The Exorcist, Steven Spielberg's Minority Report, Woody Allen's Hannah and Her Sisters End, more recently, Julian Schnabel's The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.

But to film lovers the world over, he was most enduringly associated with Bergman, if ever an actor was born to inhabit the world, according to Bergman, it was Mr von Sito, angular and lanky at six foot three, possessing a gaunt face and hooded, icy blue eyes, he not only radiated power but also registered a deep sense of Nordic conks, helping to give flesh to Bergman's often bleak but hopeful and sometimes comic vision of the human condition in classics like The Seventh Seal and The Virgin Spring.

In the seventh Seal, 1958 Mr von Sito played Antonius Block, a strapping medieval knight who returns from the Crusades to his plague ravaged homeland only to encounter the stern, ghostly, pale, black hooded figure of death played by Banky Cross to stave off the inevitable block challenges Death to a game of chess and in the long intervals between moves, he searches the countryside for some shred of human goodness dot the two grim figures hunched over a chessboard in a desolate North country landscape made for an unforgettable cinematic image, which has been both imitated and parodied but sustained Hollywood stardom alluded.

Mr. 00:01:58.180 --> 00:02:7.420 Vance Ito, despite his promising introduction to a wide audience in the lead role of George Stevens, is biblical epic, the greatest story ever told, released in 1965. 00:02:7.690 --> 00:02:9.220 The video has come to an end. 00:02:9.640 --> 00:02:11.740 Be sure to write your opinion in the comments.

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