Rutger Oelsen Hauer (born Dutch:[ˈrʏtxərˈulsə(n)ˈɦʌuər]; 23 January 1944 – 19 July 2019) was a Dutch actor, with a film career that spanned over 170 roles across nearly 50 years, beginning in 1969. In 1999, he was named by the Dutch public as the Best Dutch Actor of the Century.[1][2]
Hauer was born in Breukelen, in the Province of Utrecht, on 23 January 1944,[6] while the Netherlands was under German occupation during World War II.[7] He stated in a 1981 interview, "I was born in the middle of the war, and I think for that reason I have deep roots in pacifism. Violence frightens me."[8] His parents were Teunke (née Mellema) and Arend Hauer, both actors who operated an acting school in nearby Amsterdam.[9] He had three sisters.[10] According to Hauer, his parents were more interested in their art than their children. He did not have a close relationship with his father, and writer Erik Hazelhoff Roelfzema later became a father figure to Hauer after they met during the filming of Soldier of Orange.[2]
Hauer attended a Rudolf Steiner school, as his parents wanted him to develop his creativity.[11] At the age of 15, he left school to join the Dutch merchant navy. He spent a year travelling the world aboard a freighter, but was unable to become a captain due to his colourblindness.[12] Returning home, he worked odd jobs while finishing his high school diploma at night. He then entered the Academy for Theater and Dance in Amsterdam for acting classes, but soon dropped out to join the Royal Netherlands Army. He received training as a combat medic,[13] but left the service after a few months as he opposed the use of deadly weapons.[12] He subsequently returned to acting school and graduated in 1967.[8]
Hauer had his first acting role at the age of 11, as Eurysakes in the play Ajax.[12] After graduating from the Academy for Theater and Dance, he became a stage actor with the Toneelgroep Noorder Compagnie [nl].[2] Hauer made his screen debut in 1969 when Paul Verhoeven cast him in the lead role of the television series Floris, a Dutch medieval action drama.[14] The role made him famous in his native country,[15] and Hauer reprised his role for the 1975 German remake Floris von Rosemund.[16][17]
Hauer's career changed course when Verhoeven cast him in Turkish Delight (1973), which received an Oscar nomination for best foreign-language film.[14][17][18] The film found box office favour abroad and at home, and Hauer looked to appear in more international films.[19] Within two years, Hauer made his English-language debut in the British film The Wilby Conspiracy (1975).[20][14] Set in South Africa, the film was an action-drama with a focus on apartheid. Hauer's supporting role, however, was barely noticed in Hollywood, and he returned to Dutch films for several years. During this period, he made Katie Tippel (1975) and worked again with Verhoeven on Soldier of Orange (1977), and Spetters (1980).[13][17] These two films paired Hauer with fellow Dutch actor Jeroen Krabbé.[21] At the 1981 Netherlands Film Festival, Hauer received the Golden Calf for Best Actor for his overall body of work.[22]
American breakthrough
Hauer made his American debut in the Sylvester Stallone film Nighthawks (1981) as a psychopathic and cold-blooded terrorist named Wulfgar.[14] With his sights set on a long-term career in Hollywood, Hauer worked with an accent coach in the early 1980s to develop a convincing American accent.[23] Unafraid of controversial roles,[2] he portrayed the German architect and Nazi minister Albert Speer in the 1982 American Broadcasting Company production Inside the Third Reich.[24] The same year, Hauer appeared in arguably his most famous and acclaimed role as the eccentric and violent but sympathetic antiheroRoy Batty in Ridley Scott's 1982 science fiction thriller Blade Runner, in which he delivered the famous tears in rain monologue.[25] Hauer composed parts of the monologue the evening prior to filming, "cutting away swathes of the original script before adding the speech's poignant final line".[26] He went on to play the adventurer courting Theresa Russell in Eureka (1983),[27] an investigative reporter opposite John Hurt in The Osterman Weekend (1983),[28], the hardened mercenary Martin in Flesh & Blood (1985), and a knight paired with Michelle Pfeiffer in Ladyhawke (1985).[28]
He appeared in The Hitcher (1986) as the titular mysterious hitchhiker tormenting a lone motorist, murdering anyone in his way.[13] He received the 1987 Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in the television film Escape from Sobibor.[29] At the height of Hauer's fame, he was set to be cast as RoboCop (1987), but Verhoeven, the film's director, considered his frame as too large to move comfortably in the character's suit.[30] Also in 1987, Hauer starred as Nick Randall in Wanted: Dead or Alive as the descendant of the character played by Steve McQueen in the television series of the same name.[28]
In 1988, he played a homeless man in Ermanno Olmi's The Legend of the Holy Drinker. This performance won Hauer the Best Actor award at the 1989 Seattle International Film Festival.[31] Hauer was chosen to portray a blind martial artist superhero in Phillip Noyce's action film Blind Fury (1989). He initially struggled with the implausibility of the character, but learned to "unfocus my eyes, to react to smells and sounds" after meeting with blind judo practitioner Lynn Manning during his research for the role.[32] Hauer returned to science fiction in 1989 with The Blood of Heroes, in which he played a gladiator in a post-apocalyptic world.[33]
In 2008, Hauer received the Golden Calf Culture Prize for his contributions to Dutch cinema.[22][45] The award recognised his work as an actor as well as his efforts to aid the development of young filmmakers and actors, through initiatives such as the Rutger Hauer Film Factory [nl].[46] In 2009, his role in avant-garde filmmaker Cyrus Frisch's Dazzle received positive reviews; it was described in Dutch press as "the most relevant Dutch film of the year". The same year, Hauer starred in the title role of Barbarossa, an Italian film directed by Renzo Martinelli. In April 2010, he was cast in the live action adaptation of the short and fictitious Grindhouse trailer Hobo with a Shotgun (2011).[47] Hauer played Freddie Heineken in The Heineken Kidnapping (2011), for which he received the 2012 Rembrandt Award for Best Actor.[48] Also in 2011, Hauer appeared in the supernatural horror film The Rite as an undertaker named Istvan, the protagonist's father.[49]
Hauer was married twice.[54] Hauer and his first wife, Heidi Merz, produced Hauer's only child, Ayesha Hauer (born 1966). An actress, she gave birth to Hauer's grandson in 1987.[55] Hauer was with his second wife, Ineke ten Cate, from 1968, and they married in a private ceremony on 22 November 1985.[56] Ten Cate was the daughter of Laurens ten Cate, the editor-in-chief of the Friesland-based newspaper Leeuwarder Courant.[56] Although born in Utrecht, Hauer had strong links to Friesland.[57] He once stated in an interview with the Algemeen Dagblad that he "needed to feel the Frisian clay under [his] feet".[57][58] Hauer was an environmentalist.[59] He supported the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and was a member of its board of advisors.[57] He also established an AIDS awareness organization called the Rutger Hauer Starfish Association.[60] In April 2007, he published his autobiography, All Those Moments: Stories of Heroes, Villains, Replicants, and Blade Runners (co-written with Patrick Quinlan), in which he discussed many of his acting roles.[61] Proceeds from the book go to the Rutger Hauer Starfish Association.[62] Hauer died from pancreatic cancer on 19 July 2019 at his residence in the Netherlands, age 75.[53][63]
^Rutger Hauer and Patrick Quinlan. All those moments: stories of heroes, villains, replicants, and Blade Runners, New York, NY: HarperEntertainment, 2007. ISBN0-06-113389-2.
.jpg)
