Variety: Rutger Hauer, versatile actor with a taste for horror, dies at 75
Dutch star broke into stardom with Blade Runner, was an avid environmentalist and supported an AIDS-related nonprofit
By Chris Morris
Rutger Hauer, the versatile Dutch leading man of the ’70s who went on star in the 1982 “Blade Runner” as Roy Batty, died July 19 at his home in the Netherlands after a short illness. He was 75.
Hauer’s agent, Steve Kenis, confirmed the news and said that Hauer’s funeral was held Wednesday [July 24].
His most cherished performance came in a film that was a resounding flop on its original release. In 1982, he portrayed the murderous yet soulful Roy Batty, leader of a gang of outlaw replicants, opposite Harrison Ford in Ridley Scott’s sci-fi noir opus “Blade Runner.” The picture became a widely influential cult favorite, and Batty proved to be Hauer’s most indelible role.
More recently, he appeared in a pair of 2005 films: as Cardinal Roark in “Sin City,” and as the corporate villain who Bruce Wayne discovers is running the Wayne Corp. in Christopher Nolan’s “Batman Begins.” …
He was a natural at horror and vampire roles, starring as Van Helsing in Dario Argento’s “Dracula 3D,” and as the vampire Barlow in the 2004 miniseries adaptation of Stephen King’s “Salem’s Lot” along with Rob Lowe, Andre Braugher and Donald Sutherland.
Handsome, energetic and fluent in several languages, Hauer made his first mark in the late ’60s in the Netherlands as the star of Paul Verhoeven’s medieval TV series “Floris.” He vaulted to the top ranks of Dutch stardom in 1973 opposite Monique van de Ven in Verhoeven’s sexually explosive drama “Turkish Delight,” which became a box-office smash and garnered an Oscar nod as best foreign film. …
