The Paper's reporter Cheng Xiaojun
On March 13, local time in the United States, Veteran Hollywood actor William Hurt died of illness at the age of 71.
In the mid-1980s, William Hurte won the Academy Award for Best Actor for three consecutive years and won a small golden man with "Kiss of the Spider Woman", which is one of the most outstanding American actors of the era. In May 2018, the media exposed the news that he had prostate cancer. After that, although he actively treated, he finally failed to overcome the disease and fell on the eve of his 72nd birthday.
Stills from Spider-Woman's Kiss
Born into a middle-class family in Washington on March 30, 1950, William Hurt served as vice president of the school drama club in middle school, starring in many student plays. After graduating from high school, he chose to enroll in the department of theology at tufts University. It wasn't until four years later that he regained his old interests and entered The Juilliard School, Manhattan's leading art school, where he studied acting for four years, at the same time as Robin Williams, "Superman" Christopher River, and others.
After graduating, Hurt first worked as a full-time theater actor for several years. It was not until he was thirty that he had the opportunity to star in a film: in British director Ken Russell's science fiction film Altered States, he played a mad scientist who aspired to explore uncharted territory in the depths of human consciousness.
Stills from Soul Search
Adapted from hollywood gold medal screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky's novel of the same name, "Soul Search" was originally planned to be directed by Arthur Payne, and it was the big director who had made classic films such as "The Great Thief" who insisted on using William Hurt, who had no film and television performance experience at the time, to pick the beam. However, Payne and Chaevsky later clashed fiercely over the creation of the film and resigned as director. In search of a replacement, Colombia is said to have contacted more than two dozen candidates, including Spielberg, Kubrick and Orson Wells, but they all expressed little interest after reading the script. Finally, it was the turn of the Englishman Ken Russell, who became famous for directing "The Woman in Love", who was in danger.
After filming began, director Russell clashed with screenwriter Patti Chayevsky and got into a fight. But the film itself was made of high quality, not only receiving two Oscar nominations, but also making film newcomer William Hurte famous, and receiving a nomination for best newcomer at the 1981 Golden Globe Awards.
The entire 1980s was a period of high productivity for Hutt. On the one hand, he has collaborated with director Lawrence Cassdan for three consecutive times, starring in three films, "Body Heat", "Big Cold" and "Unexpected Traveler", which have achieved double success in word-of-mouth and box office. On the other hand, in 1986, 1987 and 1988, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for "Kiss of the Spider Woman", "Out of Favor with God's Children" and "Broadcast News". Among them, "Kiss of the Spider Woman" not only allowed him to successfully pick up the little golden man, but also won the best actor award at the Cannes Film Festival, and fans around the world remembered his name because of this work.
Adapted from the novel of the same name by Argentine writer Manuel Puig, directed by Heccote Barbank, the film tells the story of William Hurte playing the gay Molina and the revolutionary Valentine locked up in the same prison, the two initially hostile to each other and do not understand each other, but Molina uses the story of the movie he has watched to gradually knock on Valentine's heart, and eventually he, a small person who wants to survive, is also involved in the dispute of the times.
Looking back at the more than ninety years of Academy Award history, the only people like Hurt who have been nominated for the Best Actor Award for three consecutive years are Paul Mooney, Spencer Tracy, Gregory Pike, Marlon Brando, Richard Burton, Al Pacino, Jack Nicholson and Russell Crowe.
No matter what type of film he appears in, William Hurt's acting skills have always been admired. The late famous American film critic Roger Ebert once said in a film review article on "The Unexpected Traveler" that William Hurt was "the top two or three actors in the American film industry" at that time. In his opinion, the biggest feature of Hurt is the texture of ordinary people in him, and it is only purely out of various coincidences that he will encounter those encounters in the movie.
"So in movies like 'Soul Search' and 'Body Heat', he developed from the beginning of the story to the emotional explosion later, which showed that strong impact even more." Ebert writes, "Watching William Hurt act, we can feel the gradual flavor even more, especially compared to Micky Locke or Robert De Niro." At the moment, jack Nicholson may be the only one who can match him in this regard. ”
Stills from "The Unexpected Traveler"
Indeed, Hurt's own evaluation of himself has always felt that he is fundamentally the so-called character actor, but the appearance conditions are due to the conditions, when he played mostly the bright male number one, and the gap between the two seems to indicate that William Hurt is gradually drifting away from the male number one after a little older.
After entering middle age, although he has also participated in well-known works such as "Alice", "Until the End of the World", "Smoke", "Soul Shifting City", "Artificial Intelligence", "Cirena", "Secret Agent", "Wilderness Survival", "Assassination Stronghold" and so on, he can basically only play some supporting roles with few roles. Even so, in 2005, he still won the Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor with his wonderful performance in "History of Violence" for only ten minutes, which is more or less the second spring of his acting career.
William Hurt was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for A History of Violence.
In 2008, William Hurt joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe, playing General Ross in Hulk Hulk, and continued to play the role in Captain America: Civil War, Avengers 3, Avengers 4 and Black Widow, which is also a new generation of audiences who are not familiar with his past glory.
William Hurt played General Ross in a Marvel movie.
In life, Hurt is different from many Hollywood actors of his generation, he seems to have a natural rejection of the spotlight, and he does not like his private life to be exposed to the public. "I never felt that being an actor meant that you could invade my privacy and you could steal my soul." He said so in a 1989 interview with The New York Times.
It was around that time that he had just married his second wife, Heidi Henderson. In previous years, he had lived with mary Mateline, an actress who had lost her hearing at an early age, and the two had become acquainted by starring in "Out of Favor with God's Children," the first hearing-impaired person in Oscar history to win the Award for Best Actress.
William Hurt had a relationship with Mary Matryn (right), who also starred in "The Children Who Fell Out of Favor with God."
In 2009, Matteline published a personal memoir mentioning that Hurt had been addicted to the sea of drugs and often abused her domestically. In response, Hurt had to publicly issue an apology statement. Given the prevailing climate of the time, the matter did not continue to expand, nor did it deal much of a blow to his film career.
In addition to Marie-Mateline and his two wives, William Hurt has had a relationship with Sandrina Bonaire, a French actress who is 17 years younger than him and has starred in films such as "The Cruel Sacrifice" and "The Fallen Woman at the End of the World", and has a daughter.
Throughout his life, William Hurt starred in about a hundred film and television works, and acting was his most beloved job, which can be described as a complete drama. He once said: "I'm not an actor, I'm just a person who happens to like acting." I am what I am. I'm none of them. I don't exist. But the work exists. The work is more important than the actors. ”
Editor-in-charge: Cheng Yu
Proofreader: Liu Wei