Erland Josephson was born in Kungsholms parish and grew up at Kammakargatan at Norrmalm in Stockholm. He was the son of Gunnar Josephson and Maud, unmarried Boheman. The father owned and operated Sandberg's bookstore at Sturegatan.
As an actor, Josephson was often associated with Ingmar Bergman, through his many years of collaboration with this film and theater since the 1940s. Erland Josephson had no acting education but was active at Stockholm Student Theater before joining Helsingborg City Theater in 1945. In 1956 he came to Dramaten in Stockholm. He often played intellectual role figures.
In the 1970s he launched an international film career with a number of mainly European films, usually of a narrower, more artistic focus. He played in Andrej Tarkovsky's Nostalghia (1983) and his last recorded film, Offret (1986), recorded in Gotland. This became the basis for Josephson's play "En natt i den svenska sommaren".
He worked with a number of productions by authors like Lars Norén and P.O. Enquist on stage and TV / Movie and wrote and directed some own films, such as the original "Marmeladupproret" (1980).
In Sweden and abroad, he filmed with directors such as István Szabó, Peter Greenaway, Liliana Cavani, Philip Kaufman, Theo Angelopoulos, Liv Ullmann (whose movie Sofie received several international actorships for 1992), Mai Zetterling, Jörn Donner, Lars Molin, Suzanne Osten , Mikael Håfström, Stig Björkman and Unni Straume.
Josephson's parallel career as a writer began in the 1940s. He published poetry collections, novels, short stories, drama, picture books and autobiographical books. In 1993 and 2007 he was also the Summerrator in Sweden's Radio P1, the latter time together with the son of Ludvig. In 1986 he received a "Guld Bagge", and in 2004 he was awarded a "Hedersguldbagge" for his overall work. A number of years earlier he was also awarded a prize in Italian Rimini. Erland Josephson received Parkinson's disease in 1999 and contributed to spreading knowledge about this disease.
