Sir John Vincent Hurt (22 January 1940 – 25 January 2017) was an English actor. Regarded as one of the finest actors of his generation and described as having the "most distinctive voice in Britain", he was referred to by David Lynch as "simply the greatest actor in the world". In a career spanning more than five decades, he received numerous accolades, including four BAFTAs and a Golden Globe in addition to nominations for two Academy Awards. He was knighted in 2015 for his services to drama.
A graduate of Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, he came to prominence playing Richard Rich in the film A Man for All Seasons (1966) and won the British Academy Television Award for Best Actor for The Naked Civil Servant (1975). He played Caligula in the BBC TV series I, Claudius (1976). Hurt earned Academy Award nominations for Best Supporting Actor for Midnight Express (1978), and Best Actor for The Elephant Man (1980). Other films include Alien (1979), Heaven's Gate (1980), Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984), White Mischief (1987), Scandal (1989), The Field (1990), King Ralph (1991), Rob Roy (1995), and Contact (1997).
Hurt gained further prominence portraying Garrick Ollivander in the Harry Potter film series (2001–11), as well as appearing in the 2004 and 2008 Hellboy films, V for Vendetta (2005), Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008), Outlander (2008), and Snowpiercer (2013). He also acted in the acclaimed films Melancholia (2011), Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011), Only Lovers Left Alive (2013) and Jackie (2016).
Hurt reprised his role as Quentin Crisp in An Englishman in New York (2009), which brought his seventh BAFTA nomination. He portrayed an incarnation of the Doctor known as the War Doctor in Doctor Who. He voiced roles in Watership Down (1978), The Lord of the Rings (1978), The Plague Dogs (1982), The Black Cauldron (1985), Dogville (2003), Valiant (2005), Merlin (2008–2012), The Gruffalo's Child (2011), and Thomas & Friends: Sodor's Legend of the Lost Treasure (2015), and narrated the BBC documentary series Human Planet and Planet Dinosaur.
John Vincent Hurt was born on 22 January 1940, in Chesterfield, Derbyshire, the son of Arnould Herbert Hurt (1904–1999) and Phyllis (née Massey; 1907–1975). His father had been a mathematician, but became a Church of England clergyman and served as vicar of Holy Trinity Church in Shirebrook, Derbyshire; his mother, a one-time actress, became "the first female draughtsman" at Metropolitan-Vickers in Manchester. In 1937, Hurt's father moved his family to Derbyshire, where he became Perpetual Curate of Holy Trinity Church. When Hurt was five, his father became the vicar of St Stephen's Church in Woodville, Derbyshire, and remained there until 1953.
At the age of eight, Hurt was sent to the Anglican St Michael's Preparatory School in Otford, Kent, where he eventually developed his passion for acting. He decided he wanted to become an actor after his first role as a girl in a school production of The Blue Bird by Maurice Maeterlinck. Hurt stated that a senior master at the school, Donald Cormack, would abuse him and others by removing his two false front teeth and putting his tongue in the boys' mouths, as well as rubbing their faces with his stubble, and that the experience affected him hugely. Hurt, aged 12, became a boarder at Lincoln School (then a grammar school) because he had failed the entrance examination for admission to his brother's school. His headmaster at Lincoln School laughed when Hurt told him he wanted to be an actor, telling him, "Well, you may be alright in school plays but you wouldn't stand a chance in the profession."
In 1952 Hurt's father moved to St Aidan's Church in Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire. In a Guardian interview Hurt states the family lived in a vicarage opposite a cinema, but he was not allowed to go there, as films were "frowned upon." However, watching theatre was considered "fine" and encouraged particularly by his mother, who took him regularly to the repertory theatre in Cleethorpes. His parents disliked his later acting ambitions and encouraged him to become an art teacher instead. Aged 17, Hurt enrolled in Grimsby Art School (now the East Coast School of Art and Design), where he studied art. In 1959, he won a scholarship allowing him to study for an Art Teacher's Diploma at Saint Martin's School of Art in London. Despite the scholarship, paying his tuition fees and living expenses was difficult, so he persuaded some of his friends to pose naked and sold the portraits. In 1960, he won a scholarship to Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, where he trained for two years, graduating in 1962 with an Acting (RADA Diploma).
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). 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 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. The following year, Hurt appeared as Anthony John Grey, a crooked computer programming expert in The Sweeney episode Tomorrow Man.
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.
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). Around the same time, he lent his voice to Ralph Bakshi's animated film adaptation of The 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.
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". 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.