RUTGER HAUER 1944-2019 Dutch actor a hit in ‘Blade Runner,’ other action films
NEW YORK — Dutch film actor Rutger Hauer, who specialized in menacing roles, including a memorable turn as a murderous android in “Blade Runner” opposite Harrison Ford, has died. He was 75.
Hauer’s agent, Steve Kenis, said this week that the actor died July 19 at his home in the Netherlands.
Hauer’s roles included a terrorist in “Nighthawks” with Sylvester Stallone, Cardinal Roark in “Sin City” and playing an evil corporate executive in “Batman Begins.” He was in the bigbudget 1985 fantasy “Ladyhawke,” portrayed a menacing hitchhiker who’s picked up by a murderer in the Mojave Desert in “The Hitcher” and won a supportingactor Golden Globe award in 1988 for “Escape from Sobibor.”
Filmmaker Guillermo del Toro in a tweet called Hauer “an intense, deep, genuine and magnetic actor that brought truth, power and beauty to his films.” Gene Simmons, the Kiss bassist, who starred opposite Hauer in “Wanted: Dead or Alive,” described his former costar as “always a gentleman, kind and compassionate.”
In “Blade Runner,” Hauer played the murderous replicant Roy Batty on a desperate quest to prolong his artificially shortened life in postapocalyptic, 21stcentury Los Angeles.
In his dying, rainsoaked soliloquy, he looked back at his extraordinary existence.
“All those moments will be lost in time. Like tears in rain. Time to die,” he said.
Hauer’s ruggedly handsome face, blue eyes and strong physique drew the attention of American producers in such international successes as “Turkish Delight,” “Spetters” and “Soldier of Orange.”
Hauer was born in the Netherlands village of Breukelen. His parents were actors but he had little concentration for school and at 15 ran away as a seaman on a freighter. That didn’t take, nor did a stint in the army, and his parents decided he was destined to follow the family profession. Rutger enrolled in acting school.
Hauer spent five years with a small troupe bringing theater to rural Holland. He made his film debut in the saucy “Turkish Delight,” nominated for an Oscar as best foreign language film of 1973.
Earlier in his career, a Hollywood agent suggested changing his name to something easier for the American public to learn. The actor declined. “If you’re good enough, people will remember your name,” he explained.
He is survived by his wife of 50 years, Ineke ten Cate, and a daughter, actress Aysha Hauer, from a previous marriage.