Oscar-winning actor William Hurt, star of Kiss of the Spider Woman and Body Heat, has died at the age of 71.
The deadline announced the announcement of Hurt’s son Will: “It is with great sadness that the Hurt family mourns the passing of William Hurt, the beloved father and Oscar-winning actor, on March 13, 2022, one week before his 72nd birthday. He died peacefully, within the family, for a reason.” Variety said a family friend had confirmed the news.
Hurt won the 1986 Oscar-winning actress Kiss of the Spider Woman, in which he played a gay man in a cell with a political prisoner in Brazil. He also received an Oscar nomination as the Best Actor for Little Children and Broadcasting Stories, as well as the best supporting actor for A History of Violence.
Born in 1950, Hurt studied theology at university but turned to acting and enrolled at Juilliard School in 1972. After a series of stage roles, he won her first starring in a major film in Ken Russell’s horror film Altered States, which was immediately followed. by a sensual artist at the time, Body Heat, in which he played against Kathleen Turner. Body Heat’s popularity made his name, and Hurt became a major star of the 1980s. He starred in the comedy series The Big Chill, with comedian Gorky Park, and was cast in Kiss of the Spider Woman by director Héctor Babenco.
Hurt will make a spectacular success in the role, in which he plays the drag-queen cellmate of Raul Julia’s revolutionary left, winning the best Cannes and Best Actor Oscar award. The following year, he played a teacher in Children of a Lesser God, starring Marlee Matlin (later her partner) who would become the first deaf Oscar-winning actress. In 1988 he was nominated three times for the Oscar series, for his role as a TV reporter for Broadcast News.
In the 1990’s, successful roles seemed impossible; among others, especially with a curved arthouse, he was on Wim Wenders’ mammoth but disappointing Until the End of the World, Chantal Akerman’s a Couch in New York, and One True Thing directed by Carl Franklin. In 2005 he had an unexpected success with an unusual role, crime director Richie Cusack in David Cronenberg’s a History of Violence, which earned him another Oscar nomination, as a very supportive actor. Three years later, he entered the Marvel Cinematic Universe, playing the role of General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross, a role he would play in Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame, and the Black Widow.
In 2009, Matlin published a memoir in which he described Hurt’s physical and emotional abuse during their relationship. Hurt later stated: “I did not hold back from apologizing for any inconvenience this may have caused.
Hurt married twice, with Mary Beth Hurt from 1971 to 1982 and Heidi Henderson from 1989 to 1992. She also had a high-profile relationship with Matlin, Sandra Jennings and Sandrine Bonnaire.
