RUTGER HAUER

(23 January 1944 - 19 July 2019)

The Dutch actor Rutger Hauer, who has died aged 75, was born to the actors Teunke and Arend Hauer who ran their own acting school in Utrecht. Being often separated from his parents while they were on tour, Rutger became something of a rebel and ran away to sea (literally) to work on a freighter. Returning home, he studied at night school while working in the building industry. He then took drama classes, wrote poetry and joined the Navy. For five years he worked in a pantomime company before pursuing a serious acting career. His first work for Dutch TV was in Harry Kṻmel’s Monsieur Hawarden, but his scenes were deleted. Then he played the title role in Floris, a television series directed by Paul Verhoeven and then Verhoeven cast him in his feature film, the very successful Turkish Delight.

More TV and Dutch film work followed until Hauer appeared in Adrian Hoven’s Hard to Remember, Ralph Nelson’s The Wilby Conspiracy with Sidney Poitier and Michael Caine, Verhoeven’s Katie Tippel and Herbert Curiel’s The Year of the Cancer. He played Floris again in a TV sequel and was in Fons Rademakers’ epic film Max Havelaar. Hauer was back with Verhoeven again for Soldier of Orange amongst several other films. Hauer made an impression in Nighthawks with Sylvester Stallone and also in Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner as the blond, renegade replicant Roy Batty, for which role he wrote much of his own dialogue. Blade Runner did it for Hauer and he became a truly international star player in Nicolas Roeg’s Eureka, Sam Peckinpah’s The Osterman Weekend, Philippe Mora’s A Breed Apart and Precious Find, as well as Richard Donner’s Ladyhawke. Flesh + Blood was the last time Hauer and Verhoeven worked together on what was a difficult project. But there was still much to come from Hauer including The Hitcher, Wanted: Dead or Alive, Ermanno Olmi’s Golden Lion-winning The Legend of the Holy Drinker, Phillip Noyce’s Blind Fury, Lina Wertmṻller’s Up to Date, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Nostradamus (as the Mystic Monk), Partners in Crime, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Sin City, Batman Begins, Dario Argento’s Dracula 3D, and Jacques Audiard’s The Sisters Brothers, the last named arguably the best film Hauer made among many years of hack feature work and TV series (the results of which rarely reached the UK). There are still four films with Hauer awaiting release along with a television mini-series of A Christmas Carol in which Hauer plays the Ghost of Christmas Future - opposite Guy Pearce as Scrooge.

Often playing sinister or psychopathic villains, Hauer was the winner of many awards around the world, among which he received a Golden Globe for his performance in Jack Gold’s TV movie of Escape from Sobibor. Rutger Hauer was married first to Heidi Merz, with whom he had a daughter, the actress Aysha Hauer, and then from 1985 he married Ineke ten Kate who he had been with since 1968. He was an avid environmentalist and founded an Aids Awareness group which received the proceeds from the publication of his autobiography. During his career he gave master classes for students of film-making, and for many years he was the face in the commercials for Guinness, Ireland’s favourite stout.

 
MICHAEL DARVELL