Film Legend Rutger Hauer Passes Away at 75

Rutger Hauer, the film legend who created unforgettable roles in films like The Hitcher, Blade Runner, and Sin City, has passed away. Variety reports that Hauer passed away on Friday at his home in the Netherlands after a short illness at the age of 75.

Hauer had a career that ran for 50 years and included a wide variety of roles, but he will probably be best known for his work in Blade Runner as Roy Batty, John Ryder in 1986’s The Hitcher and the 1985 fantasy film Ladyhawke. Hauer played a diverse slate of characters across the spectrum of heroism and villainy, and made a major impact in genre film through his action, sci-fi, horror and fantasy work.

Hauer grew up in the Netherlands, born during a period of German occupation toward the end of World War II. His parents were drama teachers and he eventually found their passion as his own, attending the Academy for Theater and Dance in Amsterdam. He did acting with a troupe in the Netherlands before he was cast as the lead in the Dutch medieval action-drama Floris in 1969. He soon expanded out to more international work, eventually making his Hollywood debut in Sylvester Stallone’s Nighthawks in 1981. His role as Roy Batty in Blade Runner right after shot him to international fame, and he would go on to star in a host of films in the 1980s including The Osterman Weekend, Ladyhawke, The Hitcher, and Blind Fury. He also starred or appeared in several TV roles, and earned a Best Supporting Actor Golden Globe for the British TV film Escape from Sobibor based on the true story of a Jewish uprising at German concentration camps in World War II.

In the 1990s, he played the main villain, Lothos, in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie and worked with incredible regularity, appearing in multiple films per year such as Split Second, Surviving the Game with Ice-T, Omega Doom and The Call of the Wild: Dog of the Yukon. The 2000s saw him appear in Sin City as Cardinal Roark, Batman Begins as William Earle, Hobo With a Shotgun, Dracula 3D and an arc on True Blood.

On behalf of 411, our deepest condolences to the family, friends and fans of Mr. Hauer. The film world will desperately miss him.