John Hurt

Overview

Born
January 22, 1940 · Chesterfield, Derbyshire, England, UK
Died
January 25, 2017 · East Runton, Cromer, Norfolk, England, UK (pancreatic cancer)
Birth name
John Vincent Hurt
Height
5′ 9″ (1.75 m)

Biography

Family

Spouses
Children
Parents
Relatives

Trademark

Deep gravelly voice
Frequently played characters with positions of power.
Frequently played characters who suffer physical torment.
Frequently played characters who died. This happened on more than 40 times.

Trivia

Out of all working actors in Hollywood, he holds the record for the most onscreen character deaths, 47 in total.
He spoofed his role from Alien (1979) in Mel Brooks' parody Spaceballs (1987).
He was not the first choice for the role of Gilbert Kane in Alien (1979). He was brought in on the second day of filming after Jon Finch, the original actor cast for the role, was diagnosed with a severe case of diabetes and taken to hospital.
An early passion for acting was triggered when he saw Alec Guinness play Fagin in the film Oliver Twist (1948).
He was friends with the late John Entwistle, bassist and founding member of The Who. He had written a poem about him and read it out loud at his memorial October 24, 2002.

Quotes

I've done some stinkers in the cinema. You can't regret it; there are always reasons for doing something, even if it's just the location.
We are all racing towards death. No matter how many great, intellectual conclusions we draw during our lives, we know they're all only man-made, like God. I begin to wonder where it all leads. What can you do, except do what you can do as best you know how.
People like us, who turn ourselves inside out for a living, we get into an emotional tussle rather than a marriage. It's fire I'm playing with and it isn't surprising I'm not the ideal companion on a daily basis. But it takes two. I mean, Christ, I haven't forced anybody.
St Michael's was one of those very rarefied, very Anglo-Catholic establishments where they rejoiced in more religious paraphernalia and theatricality than the entire Vatican. More incense-swinging, more crucifixes, more gold tassels, more rose petals, more holy mothers, more God knows what. Three times a day they played the Angelus. When you heard it, you had to stop whatever you were doing, do the Hail Marys in your head, and then return to what you were doing. Like it would come in the middle of a Latin class. I'm just conjugating the love verb, amo, amas, amat, and doingggg! you have to stand up, go through the whole Angelus, mother-of-God thing and then crack on with amamus, amatis, amant. Sir! Because, if you didn't, Whack! Cane. Belt. Education by fear. And the really funny thing was they wouldn't tolerate bullying between peers. Prefects could bash you with a slipper, but you weren't allowed to give each other a rough time. Like who do you think you are? You haven't yet earned the privilege of being violent.
My parents' lot had literally crawled away from the second world war, taking with them two vital commodities by way of a survival mechanism: respectability and security. It was odd, coming from a Christian household, but the big thing was about not being what they called "common". I got all that, "Don't play with him, he's common". I had a friend called Grenville Barker who'd come round sometimes and play football on the lawn, but not very often. And I wasn't allowed to go to his home very often because they were working class. He was what my mother called a bad influence. Everything had to do with influence. My mother was desperate I should be properly influenced, have a proper, received accent, be sent away to school at eight. So all you can do is go into yourself, immerse yourself in your own life.