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| Rutger Hauer in Blade Runner |
Legendary actor Rutger Hauer, who gave a famous speech about mortality as the android Roy Baty in Blade Runner, has died at the age of 75, it has been announced. He passed away at his home in the Netherlands following a short illness and his funeral was held today. This is the same year as the one in which his most famous character died.
Hauer had a deep love of genre cinema and was celebrated for his work in films like Flesh And Blood, Ladyhawke, Wedlock and Sin City. He portrayed the first ever foe of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, gave Bruce Wayne a run for his money in Batman Begins and returned with a vengeance in later life to command the screen as a Hobo With A Shotgun. Full of ambition from an early age, he ran away to sea at the age of 15 and later sppent time in the military before embarking on a career as a stage actor. He made his big screen debut in 1973 in The Sensualist and went on to star in Paul Verhoeven's Soldier Of Orange. In 1986 he was terrifying audiences as The Hitcher, but his acting skills had considerable range, and he won a Golden Globe for his work in Escape From Sobibor.
Offscreen, Hauer was much loved and respected by those he worked with, and spent his free time working for environmental causes and raising awareness of AIDS. He published an autobiography, All Those Moments: Stories Of Heroes, Villains, Replicants And Blade Runners.
Hauer never retired from acting and has four films currently in post-production. His last major appearance to date was in The Sisters Brothers. He is survived by wife Ineke ten Cate, daughter Aysha Hauer and one grandchild.
Paying tribute, Guillermo Del Toro described him as "an intense, deep, genuine and magnetic actor that brought truth, power and beauty to his films."
