Career1962–1975 Hurt's first film role was as Phil Corbett in the Ralph Thomas directed British romantic drama The Wild and the Willing (1962). Hurt starred alongside Virginia Maskell and Paul Rogers. In 1963 he acted in the Kitchen sink drama This Is My Street. The following year he appeared in the television series Gideon's Way episode: The Tin God (1964) as prison escapee Freddy Tisdale. Hurt's first major role was as Richard Rich in the Fred Zinnemann directed historical drama film A Man for All Seasons (1966).[20] Hurt acted alongside Paul Scofield, Wendy Hiller, Orson Welles, Robert Shaw, Susannah York, and Vanessa Redgrave. The film received critical acclaim and six Academy Awards including for Best Picture. Hurt then acted in the British romantic drama The Sailor from Gibraltar starring Jeanne Moreau directed by Tony Richardson. He then starred in John Huston's raunchy adventure comedy Sinful Davey (1969) which critics compared to the film Tom Jones. That same year he acted in the British war film Before Winter Comes opposite David Niven and the drama In Search of Gregory alongside Julie Christie. He then played Timothy Evans, who was hanged for murders committed by his landlord John Christie, in 10 Rillington Place (1971), earning him his first BAFTA nomination for Best Supporting Actor. His portrayal of Quentin Crisp in the TV play The Naked Civil Servant (1975) gave him prominence and earned him the British Academy Television Award for Best Actor.[20] The following year, Hurt appeared as Anthony John Grey, a crooked computer programming expert in The Sweeney episode Tomorrow Man. 1976–1980 He won further acclaim for his bravura performance as the Roman emperor Caligula in the BBC drama serial I, Claudius (1976). In a much later documentary about the series, I Claudius: A Television Epic (2002), Hurt revealed that he had originally declined the role when it was first offered to him, but that series director Herbert Wise had invited him to a special pre-production party, hoping Hurt would change his mind, and that he was so impressed by meeting the rest of the cast and crew that he reversed his decision and took the role.[21] Hurt appeared in the 1978 film Midnight Express, for which he won a Golden Globe and a BAFTA and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor (the latter of which he lost to Christopher Walken for his performance in The Deer Hunter).[21] Around the same time, he lent his voice to Ralph Bakshi's animated film adaptation of Lord of the Rings, playing the role of Aragorn. Hurt voiced Hazel, the heroic rabbit leader of his warren in the film adaptation of Watership Down (both 1978) and later played the major villain, General Woundwort, in the animated television series version.[22] His other roles in the 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s included Kane, the first victim of the title creature in the Ridley Scott directed film Alien (1979). He reprised the role as a parody in Spaceballs. In 1980 he portrayed the deformed Joseph Merrick in David Lynch's biographical drama film The Elephant Man (1980). Hurt starred alongside Anthony Hopkins, John Gielgud, and Anne Bancroft. Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian praised his performance writing, "John Hurt, in complex and intricate prosthetics, plays Merrick with an unforgettably distinctive, gentle, quavering voice".[23] He won another the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role. He was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama.[20] That same year he starred in Michael Cimino's epic Western Heaven's Gate starring Kris Kristofferson, Christopher Walken, and Sam Waterston. The following year he portrayed Jesus Christ in the Mel Brooks comedy film History of the World, Part I (1981). Also in 1981 he starred in Delbert Mann's thriller Night Crossing (1981). He earned the Evening Standard British Film Award for Best Actor for his performances as Bob Champion in the sports drama Champions (1984), Mitchell Braddock in the crime thriller The Hit (1984), and Winston Smith in Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984). He also played the would-be art school radical Scrawdyke in Little Malcolm (1974). 1981–1999Hurt also had a starring role in Sam Peckinpah's critically panned but moderately successful final film, The Osterman Weekend (1983). Also in this period, he starred as the Fool opposite Laurence Olivier's King in King Lear (1983). Hurt also appeared as Raskolnikov in a BBC television adaptation of Crime and Punishment (1979).[24] Hurt voiced Snitter in The Plague Dogs, played Winston Smith in the film adaptation of George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984) and starred in Disney's The Black Cauldron (1985), voicing the film's main antagonist, the Horned King. Hurt provided the voiceover for AIDS: Iceberg/Tombstone,[25] a 1986 public information film warning of the dangers of AIDS, and played the title role, the on-screen narrator, in Jim Henson's television series The StoryTeller (1988). He had a supporting role as "Bird" O'Donnell in Jim Sheridan's film The Field (1990), which garnered him another BAFTA nomination. Hurt starred alongside Richard Harris who earned a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor. Hurt portrayed James Graham, 1st Duke of Montrose in the historical drama Rob Roy opposite Liam Neeson, Jessica Lange and Tim Roth. That same year he acted in the Jim Jarmusch directed western Dead Man (1995) starring Johnny Depp, and Walter Hill's western Wild Bill (1995) with Jeff Bridges. In 1997 he starred in Richard Kwietniowski's Love and Death on Long Island for which he was nominated for the BIFA Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a British Independent Film. He was cast as the reclusive tycoon S.R. Hadden in Contact (1997).[22] During this time, Hurt provided narration on the British musical group Art of Noise's concept album The Seduction of Claude Debussy and narrated a four-part TV series The Universe (1999).[26] 2000–2017 In the first Harry Potter film, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001), he played Mr Ollivander, the wand-maker. He returned for the adaptation of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, though his scenes in that film were cut. He also returned for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 and Part 2. In the 2006 film V for Vendetta, he played the role of Adam Sutler, leader of the Norsefire fascist dictatorship and in Steven Spielberg's Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) he appeared as Harold Oxley.[27] He voiced the Great Dragon Kilgharrah, who aids the young warlock Merlin as he protects the future King Arthur, in the BBC television series Merlin (also 2008).[28] In 2011, he narrated the BBC documentary, Planet Dinosaur, the first dinosaur-centred documentary completely shown through CGI.[citation needed] More than thirty years after The Naked Civil Servant, Hurt reprised the role of Quentin Crisp in the 2009 film An Englishman in New York. This television film depicts Crisp's later years in New York.[29] He returned to Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, playing the on-screen Big Brother for the Paper Zoo Theatre Company's stage adaptation of the novel in June 2009. The theatre production premiered at the National Media Museum, in Bradford and toured during 2010. Hurt said, "I think Paper Zoo thought it would be quite ironic to have the person who played Winston having risen in the party. From the Chestnut Tree Cafe, he's managed to get his wits together again, now understanding that 2 and 2 make 5, and becomes Big Brother. So it tickled my fancy, and of course I looked up Paper Zoo, and they seem to me to be the sort of company that's essential in the country as we know it, and doing a lot of really good stuff."[30]  At the 65th British Academy Film Awards Hurt won the award for Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema. In 2013, Hurt appeared in Doctor Who as a 'forgotten' incarnation of the Doctor, known as the War Doctor.[31] His character first appears at the conclusion of the series seven finale "The Name of the Doctor"; his origins are given in the mini-episode "The Night of the Doctor"; he regenerates in the 50th anniversary episode "The Day of the Doctor",[31] He reprised the role on audio for Big Finish Productions in a series of audio stories starting from 2015 to 2017, completing twelve episodes over four box sets.[32] He also played the title character in an audio drama adaptation of The Invisible Man for the company, for which he was nominated for a BBC Audio Drama Award.[33][34] During Terry Gilliam's eighth attempt at making his development hell project The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, Hurt was set to star as Don Quixote alongside Adam Driver. However, his declining health and eventual death led the project to be cancelled yet again; he was eventually replaced by Jonathan Pryce.[35][36] Hurt was due to appear alongside Ben Kingsley in a film entitled Broken Dream, to be directed by Neil Jordan.[37] In 2015, Hurt provided the voice of main antagonist Sailor John in the Thomas & Friends film Sodor's Legend of the Lost Treasure along with Eddie Redmayne (Ryan) and Jamie Campbell Bower (Skiff).[38] At the time of his death he had completed filming That Good Night, in which he played a terminally ill writer.[citation needed] Hurt was initially cast as former British prime minister Neville Chamberlain in Darkest Hour. However, according to Gary Oldman, Hurt was undergoing treatment for pancreatic cancer, and was unable to attend the read-throughs; actor Ronald Pickup assumed the role of Chamberlain instead, and Hurt died from cancer in January 2017.[39] | |||