STARS PAY TRIBUTE TO SIR JOHN HURT
TRIBUTES have been paid to veteran actor Sir John Hurt, who has died at 77 after a battle with pancreatic cancer. The Oscar-nominated star was best known for playing the title role in The Elephant Man.
But he won a new, younger fanbase later in his career, playing wand merchant Mr Ollivander in the Harry Potter films and appearing in a memorable episode of Doctor Who.
Yesterday his agent, Charles McDonald, confirmed his death following a two-year battle with cancer.
The British actor was nominated for two Academy Awards, for The Elephant Man and Midnight Express, and won four Bafta Awards, including a lifetime achievement recognition for his outstanding contribution to British cinema, in 2012.
In 2005 he married his fourth wife, Welsh film producer Anwen, a former actress and classical pianist 25 years his junior.
She said yesterday it will be a “strange world” without the veteran actor.
Anwen Hurt called the awardwinning actor the “most gentlemanly of gentlemen”, as it was revealed that he spent the last years of his life working on a number of films.
In a statement Mrs Hurt said: “It is with deep sadness that I have to confirm that my husband, John Vincent Hurt, died on Wednesday, January 25, at home in Norfolk.
“John was the most sublime of actors and the most gentlemanly of gentlemen, with the greatest of hearts and the most generosity of spirit. He touched all our lives with joy and magic and it will be a strange world without him.”
Hurt also played the role of Welshman Timothy John Evans in 1971 British crime drama film 10 Rillington Place.
He attended an event hosted by Screen Academy Wales at the University of Glamorgan’s ATRiuM campus in 2010, where he participated in a Q&A with students, telling them there should be more “truly Welsh” films.
He said: “Wales should have a fantastic film industry but there is nothing going on.
“We are not being educated about our own culture and as such we lose a little bit of it each time we go to the cinema and see something made by Americans.
“I’m not talking about social realism or anything like that, I just mean the culture in the UK, and especially Wales, is fantastically interesting and we need more films that reflect our society and the way in which we think and use our imagination.”
In November 2013 he starred alongside Matt Smith and David Tennant as the War Doctor in a special 50th anniversary episode of Doctor Who, starring as a “forgotten” incarnation of the Doctor, known as the War Doctor.
Stars have paid tribute “magnificent talent”.
Welsh actor Luke Evans, who worked with Sir John in Hollywood film Immortals in 2011, said he would “never forget” the memories they shared.
He said: “We shared a trailer and we would sit in our loincloths and he would tell me story after story of the good old (crazy!) times of filmmaking.
“I was so new to the business but he spoke to me like an equal, with a kindness and a dignity only a man of his generation possessed.”
He added: “RIP Mr Hurt and thank you for that special memory.”
Author of the Harry Potter books, JK Rowling, tweeted of Sir John: “So very sad to hear that the immensely talented and deeply beloved John Hurt has died.
“My thoughts are with his family and friends.”
Childline founder and president Dame Esther Rantzen hailed Sir John, who was a fundraiser for the children’s charity, saying he had an “extraordinary career”.
She said: “He understood it was a unique way for children to seek help. He will be a great loss to the children in this country.”
Sir John enjoyed a big hit with h sci-fi horror Alien in 1979 and his character Kane’s final scene, in n which the xenomorph creature e bursts from his chest, has been fre- quently named as one of the mostst memorable in cinematic history.
He was knighted by the Queenn for services to drama at an investiiture ceremony at Windsor Castle in n 2015. to his