Actor Rutger Hauer has passed away at his home on July 19, after battling a short unspecified illness. He was 75 years old.
Hauer’s career began in 1969, when director Paul Verhoeven cast him in the lead role in the Dutch television series Floris, a medieval action drama. Hauer, a Dutch resident, became quickly famous in his home country, and this led to another collaboration with Verhoeven in 1973, in a Dutch romantic drama called Turkish Delight, which boosted his popularity even further within the Netherlands.
Hauer maintained an extensive career in Dutch cinema throughout the 1970’s, and made his English-language debut in the British drama The Wilby Conspiracy, in a supporting role alongside Sidney Poitier and Michael Caine. This would be Hauer’s only English-language film of the 1970’s, and wouldn’t make his American film debut until 1981 in Nighthawks, alongside Sylvester Stallone and Billy Dee Williams.
His breakout role came in 1982 when he was cast in Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, playing Roy Batty, a renegade android and the main antagonist of the film. Not only was this one of his earliest roles in an American film, this wound up being Hauer’s most well-known and easily best roles, giving one of his most gripping performances. Hauer’s role as Batty is especially remembered for his often-quoted “Tears in the Rain” monologue towards the end of the film.
Hauer began picking up more English-language roles after Blade Runner. His second most-famous role in the 1980’s came in 1986 when he was cast as a psychopathic killer who tormented C. Thomas Howell in The Hitcher. While the film received mixed reviews at the time, it has since gone on to achieve a cult following in the horror community.
Since The Hitcher, Hauer maintained an extensive career, having appeared in well over 100 films and TV series. Some of his most famous films include Blind Fury, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, and Sin City.
In 2011, Hauer was cast in the exploitation film Hobo With a Shotgun, based on the faux trailer that appeared during the Robert Rodriguez-Quentin Tarantino joint feature Grindhouse (which he was not featured in). The film is an over-the-top dark comedy that parodied exploitation films of the 1970’s, and Hauer had a blast with that role, with this easily being one of his funniest performances. This would be the most well-known of his more recent film roles.
Hauer’s career didn’t slow down after Hobo With a Shotgun, and he continued appearing in supporting roles in smaller films and TV series, including a small recurring role on the TV series True Blood. His final film role released before his death was in 2018’s The Sisters Brothers, in which he played The Commodore, the man who hired the titular characters to hunt down a man who stole from him. He had one more title released in his lifetime, when he voiced the role of Master Xehanort in the video game Kingdom Hearts III, released in January 2019. Hauer had taken over the role from Leonard Nimoy, who himself had passed away in 2015 after originally voicing the role.
Hauer’s career spanned five decades, with many memorable roles throughout his entire career, leaving behind a legacy for generations to come.
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