Actor John Hurt Dies At Age 77 (hollywoodreporter.com) 50
Slashdot reader necro81 writes: A fantastic chameleon of the stage and screen has died. Sir John Hurt passed away at age 77. Slashdot readers should recognize him as the first person to have a xenomorph burst from his chest in the original Alien (a scene he later parodied in Spaceballs ). Others may recall he played the downtrodden protagonist Winston Smith in the film adaption of 1984 , then later played the tyrannical High Chancellor in V for Vendetta . Also: the titular character in The Elephant Man, Caligula in I, Claudius, Ollivander in the Harry Potter films and, more recently, Gilliam in Snowpiercer. But his career spanned decades and genres, and our world is a bit meeker and colorless without him.
Hurt also appeared as the War Doctor in five episodes of the new Doctor Who series, and provided the voice of Aragorn in Ralph Bakshi's 1978 adaptation of The Lord of the Rings.
Hurt also appeared as the War Doctor in five episodes of the new Doctor Who series, and provided the voice of Aragorn in Ralph Bakshi's 1978 adaptation of The Lord of the Rings.
I.Claudius (Score:2, Informative)
Hurt also played the unforgettable, self-proclaimed God, Caligula in I, Claudius.
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I'm going to have to find that series again. I read the books about ten years ago, and they were very good, but I remember the series being quite brilliant. Hurt's Caligula was very good indeed.
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I'll always remember him as... (Score:2)
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A pair of shoes that wore away to nothing. She gave them to me as a keepsake.
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War Doctor (Score:2)
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And lets not forget his most prolific and memorable role remembered by fans around the globe as that king guy in the Hercules film starring The Rock Dwayne Johnson.
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I wish Big Finish would be a bit more realistic in their pricing. I just bought a couple of DVD boxed sets of 7-year runs of (fairly recent) TV shows for about £30-40 each. That's around 100 hours of big-budget film. If I buy the 8th Doctor / War Doctor series as a bundle from Big Finish, I get about 20 hours of audio for £100. A quick look on Amazon gives the first 4 seasons of the new Doctor Who (44 hours) for £38.99. Why on Earth does Big Finish think that their radio plays are wor
2 Day Old News for Nerds (Score:1, Insightful)
Seriously, you posted this 2 days after he died. This is not news anymore.
What the hell happened to this site? What's a turd this place has become.
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Contact (1997) (Score:4, Interesting)
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The character had two minutes of screen time at best.
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He had a small role in Jarmusch's "Dead Man" with Johnny Depp, and stole the scene. :)
This.
I remember Hurt's fleeting role in Contact, too. Screen-presence is not counted in "minutes".
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He did proper roles, obviously, but he was well known for doing cameos.
Winston Smith (Score:2)
In Laurence Olivier's "King Lear," he played the Fool. In "10 Rillington Place," he played a man hanged for a murder he did not commit, in "Champions," a jockey afflicted with cancer; in "Shout," a cuckolded church organist; in "A Man for All Seasons," the duplicitous Richard Rich, and in "Scandal," Stephen Ward, the osteopath at the center of the so-called Profumo affair, Britain's infamous imbroglio of politics and sex. Hurt liked to joke that for a moment after "The Elephant Man," he thought he was in danger of being typecast: "What would you think would be the first part that was offered me following 'Elephant Man?' Try 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame.'
The Dragon: You will remember me. (Score:2)
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I think John would say to today's politicians. 'The problem is, young warlock, that you wish to talk but you don't wish to listen.'
Any politicians in particular, like maybe the one in the US doing the homage to his role as High Chancellor Adam Sutler?
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Judging by the rest of your post you weren't exactly decrepit when you gave up.
A legend dies (Score:5, Funny)
I will never forget his masterpiece of a autobiographical movie where he relates his issue with highschool bullying, chiefly being forced into his own locker by a gang of bullies.
The Hurt locker is really my favorite movie.
Why this is sad (Score:2)
Why do we care when celebrities die? People make a big deal out of it, and I've come to the conclusion that there are two good reasons:
1) When an artist (actor, singer, etc.) produces work that touches our lives, they've become a part of our culture. When we die, we mourn because that work became a part of us. This is, from another perspective, the same reason we get upset about alterations to movies like Star Wars and E.T.--it's not just some movie owned by someone else, but a part of our culture and a
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The thing about celebrities that makes them interesting is that many people are familiar with them. I might have a stronger emotional attachment to my uncle, but I can't talk about his
Hellboy (Score:3)
Don't forget Helboy or Hellboy 2, thought he was great in both as Hellboy's adopted father. Kinda surprised it wasn't mentioned in the summary, both were pretty recent and big movies.