Hollywood: No Clich

Elizabeth Taylor has been signed on as Mary Magdalene. Rumors have Marlon Brando as Judas, Spencer Tracy as Pontius Pilate. But last week Director George Stevens released the biggest casting news of the Hollywood year: Swedish Actor Max von Sydow, 31, has been chosen to play Jesus Christ in The Greatest Story Ever Told. One of the ablest members of Ingmar Bergman's close-knit film and theater team, Von Sydow was the mysterious hero of The Magician, the God-haunted knight in The Seventh Seal, the avenging father in The Virgin Spring. When the Hollywood offer came, says Von Sydow, "I thought with horror of Cecil B. DeMille and such things as Samson and Delilah and The Ten Commandments. But when I saw the script, I decided that the role of Jesus is absolutely not a religious cliché."