Kjell Nilsson

Highest Rated: 95% Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981)

Lowest Rated: 95% Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981)

Birthday: Dec 19, 1949

Birthplace: Gothenburg, Sweden

Kjell Nilsson became an actor to please his new wife. The Swedish bodybuilder came to Australia in 1980 to help the Swedish weightlifting squad prepare for the Moscow Olympics. However, he met actress Kate Ferguson, who landed him a swashbuckling supporting role in "The Pirate Movie," Ken Annakin's reworking of Gilbert and Sullivan's operetta "The Pirates of Penzance." Nilsson's imposing bulk clearly impressed George Miller, who cast him as The Humungus in his 1981 sequel, "Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior." Mention a movie villain in an ice hockey netminder's mask and most buffs would think of Jason Vorhees, the serial killer from the "Friday the 13th" franchise. However, a year after he began his reign of terror, Max Rockatansky (Mel Gibson) was confronted by another mask-wearing maniac, who was terrorizing the workers at an oil refinery in the post-apocalyptic wasteland. Miller told critic Danny Peary that The Humungus wore his protector to cover the burns he probably received during his time as a military officer and, while he is somewhat upstaged by sidekick Wez (Vernon Wells), he still makes quite an entrance--being announced by The Toadie (Max Phipps) as "the warrior of the wasteland, the Lord Humungus, the ayatollah of rock-and-rollah"--and a spectacular exit, as his Nitrous Oxide-boosted Ford F-100 Ute is obliterated in a head-on collision. Unfortunately, Nilsson only acted twice more, as a male nurse in the 1984 teleplay "Man of Letters" and Jorma in the 1987 thriller, "The Edge of Power."