By Mark Kennedy, Entertainment Writer
NEW YORK (AP) --Dutch film actor Rutger Hauer, who specialized in menacing roles, including a memorable turn as a murderous android in "Blade Runner" opposite Harrison Ford, has died. He was 75.
Hauer's agent, Steve Kenis, said Wednesday the actor died July 19 at his home in the Netherlands.
Hauer's roles included a terrorist in "Nighthawks" with Sylvester Stallone, Cardinal Roark in "Sin City" and playing an evil corporate executive in "Batman Begins." He was in the big-budget 1985 fantasy "Ladyhawke," portrayed a menacing hitchhiker who's picked up by a murderer in the Mojave Desert in "The Hitcher" and won a supporting-actor Golden Globe award in 1988 for "Escape from Sobibor."
Filmmaker Guillermo del Toro in a tweet called Hauer "an intense, deep, genuine and magnetic actor that brought truth, power and beauty to his films." Gene Simmons, the KISS bassist who starred opposite Hauer in "Wanted: Dead or Alive," described his former co-star as "always a gentleman, kind and compassionate."
In "Blade Runner," Hauer played the murderous replicant Roy Batty on a desperate quest to prolong his artificially shortened life in post-apocalyptic, 21st-century Los Angeles.
In his dying, rain-soaked soliloquy, he looked back at his extraordinary existence. "All those moments will be lost in time. Like tears in rain. Time to die," he said.
"It's so much fun to playfully roam into the dark side of the soul and tease people," the actor told The Associated Press in 1987. "If you try to work on human beings' light side, that's harder. What is good is hard. Most people try to be good all their lives. So you have to work harder to make those characters interesting."
Hauer's ruggedly handsome face, blue eyes and strong physique drew the attention of American producers in such international successes as "Turkish Delight," ''Spetters" and "Soldier of Orange." The offers from the United States came as a surprise to Hauer, who faced the same uncertain future experienced by other Dutch film actors.
"We make about 10 films a year, all in Dutch," he recalled. "You act for your own community, basically, which is fine. But you can't live on it. There is also the danger of overexposure; you can't be too greedy." After the world recognition for "Soldier of Orange," a friend suggested Hauer might be able to find work in American films.
Hauer was born in the Netherlands village of Breukelen. His parents were actors but he had little concentration for school and at 15 ran away as a seaman on a freighter. That didn't take, nor did a stint in the army, and his parents decided he was destined to follow the family profession. Rutger enrolled in acting school.
Hauer spent five years with a small troupe bringing theater to rural Holland. He made his film debut in the saucy "Turkish Delight," nominated for an Oscar as best foreign language film of 1973.
Earlier in his career, a Hollywood agent suggested changing his name to something easier for the American public to learn. The actor declined. "If you're good enough, people will remember your name," he explained.
He is survived by his wife of 50 years, Ineke ten Cate, and a daughter, actress Aysha Hauer, from a previous marriage.
Local school staple “Lost on a Mountain in Maine” from 1939 hits the big screen nationwide
Most Maine schoolchildren know about the boy lost for more than a week in 1939 after climbing the state's tallest mountain. Now the rest of the U.S. is getting in on the story.
Opening in 650 movie theaters on Friday, "Lost on a Mountain in Maine" tells the harrowing tale of 12-year-old Donn Fendler, who spent nine days on Mount Katahdin and the surrounding wilderness before being rescued. The gripping story of survival commanded the nation's attention in the days before World War II and the boy's grit earned an award from the president.
For decades, Fendler and Joseph B. Egan's book, published the same year as the rescue, has been required reading in many Maine classrooms, like third-grade teacher Kimberly Nielsen's.
"I love that the overarching theme is that Donn never gave up. He just never quits. He goes and goes," said Nielsen, a teacher at Crooked River Elementary School in Casco, who also read the book multiple times with her own kids.
Separated from his hiking group in bad weather atop Mount Katahdin, Fendler used techniques learned as a Boy Scout to survive. He made his way through the woods to the east branch of the Penobscot River, where he was found more than 30 miles (48 kilometers) from where he started. Bruised and cut, starved and without pants or shoes, he survived nine days by eating berries and lost 15 pounds (7 kilograms).
The boy's peril sparked a massive search and was the focus of newspaper headlines and nightly radio broadcasts. Hundreds of volunteers streamed into the region to help.
The movie builds on the children's book, as told by Fendler to Egan, by drawing upon additional interviews and archival footage to reinforce the importance of family, faith and community during difficult times,... Read More