Birth name:John Vincent Hurt Birth:22 January 1940 Died:25 January 2017 Nationality:
Career / Biography
John Hurt was a Britsh character actor and one of his best performances was in the Elephant Man. He had a prolific career from the 1960's through to his death and appeared a variety of films including sci-fi, action, drama and horror. He is also known for his role in the first Alien film. He studied art and then went on to RADA. His first major film role was in Fred Zinnemann's A Man For All Seasons. This was followed by John Huston's Sinful Davy and Richard Fleischer's 10 Rillington Place, wher he played a man who was executed for murders he did not commit. He gained critical acclaim for his role in the television series I Claudius. It was his role in Midnight Express that earned him a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination as a drug addict in a Turkish prison. It was though his role in Alien that brought him to the attention of the wider public, most notabley for the scene where ther alien bursts through his stomach that is na key scene in the film. He followed this with probably his best performance as John Merrick in David Lynch's The Elephant Man. He delivers the role with a great deal of empathy, given that he has limited dialogue. He was Oscar nominated for Best Actor. Heaven's Gate was not a successful filmpartly due to the nature of the story and the animal abuse during filming. He turned to comedy with Mel Brooks History of the World: Part I and had commercial success with Sam Peckinpah's spy thriller The Osterman Weekend. He gives a very good performance as Winston Smith in Ninety Eighty-Four. After films of comedy and drama he appeared in the historical film Rob Roy. He returned to sci-fi with Contact. He then had a small part in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. V for Vendetta is another film set in a slightly dystopian future where he plays the opposite charcter to that in 1984. He appeared in the 2010 reamke of Brighton Rock. His later career continued with appearances in a variety of genres, though often not in leading roles.
