Rutger Hauer, who has died at the age of 75, had been a star in his native Netherlands for 50 years, but, outside his home country, he will be best remembered for his standout role as Roy Batty in Blade Runner.
Released in 1982, Ridley Scott’s science fiction classic ended with Hauer delivering a famous speech - partly written by the actor - that broke new ground in futuristic lyricism. “I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe,” he said to Harrison Ford’s character. “Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.”
He also starred in such hits as The Hitcher, Sin City and Confessions of a Dangerous Mind.
Hauer was born near Utrecht as the son of drama teachers. He was raised comfortably in Amsterdam, but, always an oddball, ran off at the age of 15 to work on freight ships.
He later studied at the Academy for Theatre and Dance in Amsterdam and, after service as a medic in the Dutch army, joined an experimental theatre group.
The famously eccentric Dutch director Paul Verhoeven can claim to have discovered him. The two first worked on the medieval TV series Floris in 1969 and the actor immediately became a popular star at home.
Hauer moved in another direction when Verhoeven cast him in the well-regarded Turkish Delight. Released in 1973, that picture, the story of a passionate affair between an artist and a younger woman, won excellent reviews and was nominated for an Academy Award. In 1999 it was named best Dutch film of the 20th century. He later worked again with Verheoven on the excellent war film Soldier of Orange.
Imposing
Speaking excellent English, handsome in a towering, imposing fashion, Hauer was always likely to find work in Hollywood.
Blade Runner was famously not a hit on first release, but his performance as the chief antagonist was sufficiently strong to get him noticed. A career as a popular character actor followed.
Early in the 1990s, he became the face of Guinness in a series of British commercials that made him financially secure for life.
“I am a millionaire and I don’t need to work,” he said at this time. “I only want to do interesting things. Hollywood does not really exist anyway. It is a bunch of producers and distribution people who decided together with some agents what material is going to go. If you happen to be in it then your face is nailed to one character all over the world and they cannot see you in any other way.”
Like a number of European actors who made it abroad, he ended up with two distinct identities. In Holland, he was a glamorous leading man. In America, he was usually the heavy or the lurking maniac. He was both in Robert Harmon’s memorable thriller The Hitcher from 1986.
Hauer was a committed environmentalist. He also established an Aids awareness organisation called the Rutger Hauer Starfish Association.
Twice married, he was made a knight in the Order of the Netherlands Lion in 2013.
Hollywood never did enough with him.
“They want to put you in a box,” he said. “It makes for short-term security I guess but the problem is that people don’t come in boxes. We’re more like bubbles of water.”
