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RIP Rutger Hauer

mdmost

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mdmost

mdmost 43001

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He's seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. He watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.

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Rutger Hauer, ‘Blade Runner’ Co-Star, Dies at 75

Rutger Hauer 'Sights of Death' film photocall, Rome, Italy - 23 Jan 2014
CREDIT: AGF S.R.L./REX/SHUTTERSTOCK

Rutger Hauer, the versatile Dutch leading man of the ’70s who went on star in the 1982 “Blade Runner” as Roy Batty, died July 19 at his home in the Netherlands after a short illness. He was 75.

Hauer’s agent, Steve Kenis, confirmed the news and said that Hauer’s funeral was held Wednesday.

His most cherished performance came in a film that was a resounding flop on its original release. In 1982, he portrayed the murderous yet soulful Roy Batty, leader of a gang of outlaw replicants, opposite Harrison Ford in Ridley Scott’s sci-fi noir opus “Blade Runner.” The picture became a widely influential cult favorite, and Batty proved to be Hauer’s most indelible role.

More recently, he appeared in a pair of 2005 films: as Cardinal Roark in “Sin City,” and as the corporate villain who Bruce Wayne discovers is running the Wayne Corp. in Christopher Nolan’s “Batman Begins.”

In “True Blood,” he played Niall Brigant, the king of the tribe from which the Stackhouse family is descended and the faerie grandfather to Sookie, Jason Stackhouse and Hunter Savoy. Hauer also recurred on ABC’s medieval musical comedy “Galavant” as Kingsley in 2015.

He was a natural at horror and vampire roles, starring as Van Helsing in Dario Argento’s “Dracula 3D,” and as the vampire Barlow in the 2004 miniseries adaptation of Stephen King’s “Salem’s Lot” along with Rob Lowe, Andre Braugher and Donald Sutherland. 

Handsome, energetic and fluent in several languages, Hauer made his first mark in the late ‘60s in the Netherlands as the star of Paul Verhoeven’s medieval TV series “Floris.” He vaulted to the top ranks of Dutch stardom in 1973 opposite Monique van de Ven in Verhoeven’s sexually explosive drama “Turkish Delight,” which became a box-office smash and garnered an Oscar nod as best foreign film.

After three more Dutch features with Verhoeven that became art-house successes in the U.S., Hauer segued to a Hollywood career with a flashy role as a terrorist in the 1981 Sylvester Stallone thriller “Nighthawks.”

Hauer increasingly turned to action-oriented parts in the ‘80s: He toplined the big-budget fantasy “Ladyhawke” (1985), reteamed with fellow Hollywood transplant Verhoeven in the sword-and-armor epic “Flesh & Blood” (1985), starred as a psychotic killer in “The Hitcher” (1986), and took Steve McQueen’s shotgun-toting bounty hunter role in a modern reboot of the TV Western “Wanted: Dead or Alive” (1986).

His major artistic triumph came in Ermanno Olmi’s Italian production “The Legend of the Holy Drinker” (1988); his sensitive turn as a homeless drunk and petty criminal who finds redemption in Paris carried the feature, which collected the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.

During the ‘90s, Hauer gravitated to more routine roles in American and international productions and played the vampire lord Lothos in the original film version of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”

He debuted as a small screen star as Nazi official Albert Speer in the 1982 telefilm adaptation of Speer’s book “Inside the Third Reich.” His most admired TV work came in projects that turned on World War II themes: He received Golden Globe nominations for his performances as the leader of a concentration camp revolt in “Escape From Sobibor” (1987) and an SS officer in the alternate-universe drama “Fatherland” (1994).

He was born Jan. 23, 1944, in Breukelen, the Netherlands, near Amsterdam. Though both his parents were acting teachers, he took a circuitous route to the craft. He ran away from home at 15 to join the Dutch merchant navy; after returning to Amsterdam in 1962 he briefly studied acting, but exited school again for a stint in the army.

Finally committing himself to the stage, he became a member of the touring experimental troupe Noorder Compagnie, in which he acted, directed and served as costume designer and translator for several years.

His major break came in 1969 when Verhoeven cast him in the title role of “Floris,” an Ivanhoe-like knight who becomes embroiled in court intrigue upon his return from the Crusades. The show proved wildly popular, and Hauer reprised the part in a 1975 revival of the series, “Floris von Rosemund.”

By that time, the steamy, affecting “Turkish Delight” had firmly established him as the Netherlands’ top B.O. attraction. He reunited with Verhoeven and his co-star van de Ven for the period drama “Katie Tippel” (1975); he renewed his collaboration with the director with the World War II saga “Soldier of Orange” (1977) and the bold contemporary drama “Spetters” (1980).

Hauer made an almost immediate and intense impression as Batty in his sophomore American feature “Blade Runner,” an adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” He wrote his own dialog for the film’s climactic face-off with his adversary Ford. Though the film swiftly fell off screens, it remains a genre landmark today, in no small measure because of Hauer’s electrifying performance.

Olmi’s “The Legend of the Holy Drinker” brought him possibly the best notices of his career, but it failed to attract great attention beyond art-house audiences, and Hauer soon became a familiar and prolific supporting player in a variety of genre pictures, several of which went direct to home video. He shot seven features in 2001 alone.He was active in social causes as an outspoken sponsor of the environmental organization Greenpeace and the founder the Starfish Association, a non-profit devoted to AIDS awareness.

He is survived by his second wife of 50 years, Ineke ten Cate, and a daughter, actress Aysha Hauer, from his marriage to Heidi Merz.

— Carmel Dagan contributed to this report.

 

Edited by mdmost
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BigDHornfan

BigDHornfan 6547

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25 minutes ago, bamachine said:

RIP

This is twice this year that I commented online about a star, out of the spotlight and they died a couple days later. Anyone got some names they want me to mention online?

Bob Stoops, barry switzer, kyler murray, baker mayfield, etc...

 

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Butch Had Not

Butch Had Not 2970

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2 hours ago, mdmost said:

He's seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. He watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.

 

He didn't see shit in blind fury! 

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Parliament

Parliament 14258

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I always thought that Blade Runner would have been superior if told from Hauer's perspective. He's so dynamic in so many sequences. His face and gesture after he kills his maker is haunting and, to me, unforgettable.
RIP
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That would be a good movie. They could almost do the same thing with Bautista's 2049 character.

Regarding his 90's B movies. Shame on us all for not mentioning:

1fd3ca780e538bf71d654967823003a3.jpg
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Frank Erwin

Frank Erwin 203

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1 hour ago, Parliament said:

That would be a good movie. They could almost do the same thing with Bautista's 2049 character.

Regarding his 90's B movies. Shame on us all for not mentioning:

1fd3ca780e538bf71d654967823003a3.jpg

Surviving the Game was awesome...Ice T, Rutger Hauer, Gary Busey.  Sure, it's an oft retold version of "The Most Dangerous Game", but those actors made it great.

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Paper_jam

Paper_jam 831

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Of all the countless actors I've seen play a psychopath who rips a teenage girl (or young woman) in half by using them as a human tractor-trailer hitch, his performance was head and shoulders above the rest.

(But seriously, anytime you saw his name in the credits of something, you knew it was going to deliver.)

 

 

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Prepuce of Doom

Prepuce of Doom 21073

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4 hours ago, Paper_jam said:

Of all the countless actors I've seen play a psychopath who rips a teenage girl (or young woman) in half by using them as a human tractor-trailer hitch, his performance was head and shoulders above the rest.

What movie was this? 

The hard candy/rock scene and the eyebrowectomy in Blind Fury are both the kind of masterpieces that could single-handedly carry a movie. 

Edited by Prepuce of Doom
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RomaVicta

RomaVicta 29907

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18 minutes ago, BurntEyes said:

Don't agree with your take on perspective but do otherwise.

Blade Runner is one of the few films I can think of where the entirety of the supporting cast were as important as the the primary protagonist.

Howard as the antagonist was flat out amazing. Agree with others about it being one of the top villans of all time. That would actually make for an interesting discussion in the right sub.

I'm a fan of his full body of work and grateful I got to enjoy his craft throughout my life.

Interesting to me that he is called a villain in this film. Adversary seems a better word. He was terrifying, but don't good guys want to be terrifying to their adversaries.

Maybe the best thing about the film is Rutger's mercy at the end. He surpasses humans.

I wasn't that big of a fan of the movie. I kept returning to see what I was missing. I saw the non-narrated version when it was released. That's when I saw that the main attraction for me was the Hauer character.

Just different tastes. Thanks for the conversation.

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Prepuce of Doom

Prepuce of Doom 21073

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17 minutes ago, RomaVicta said:

Interesting to me that he is called a villain in this film. Adversary seems a better word. He was terrifying, but don't good guys want to be terrifying to their adversaries.

Maybe the best thing about the film is Rutger's mercy at the end. He surpasses humans.

I wasn't that big of a fan of the movie. I kept returning to see what I was missing. I saw the non-narrated version when it was released. That's when I saw that the main attraction for me was the Hauer character.

Just different tastes. Thanks for the conversation.

I think he's almost viewed by audiences as a villain by default - after all, he's not human, and our protagonist is assumed to be. The issue of what it means to be human (or "more human than human") is the overarching theme of the movie. 

Edit - > simultaneous post with BE's above. 

Edited by Prepuce of Doom
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