Sir John Vincent Hurt, CBE (born 22 January 1940) is an English actor. Among other honours, he has received two Academy Award nominations, a Golden Globe Award, and four BAFTA Awards, with the fourth being a Lifetime Achievement recognition.
Hurt is known for his leading roles as deformed man John Merrick in David Lynch's biopic The Elephant Man (1980), Winston Smith in the dystopian drama Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984), Mr. Braddock in the Stephen Frears drama The Hit (1984), Stephen Ward in the drama depicting the Profumo affair, Scandal (1989), Quentin Crisp in the TV film The Naked Civil Servant (1975) and the biographical drama An Englishman in New York (2009), and Caligula in the TV series I, Claudius (1976). Recognisable for his distinctive rich voice, he has also enjoyed a successful voice acting career in films such as Watership Down (1978), the animated The Lord of the Rings (1978), and Dogvillei>, as well as the BBC television series Merlin. He portrayed the War Doctor in the Doctor Who 50th anniversary special "The Day of the Doctor", following brief appearances in previous episodes.
Hurt initially came to prominence for his role as Richard Rich in the 1966 film A Man for All Seasons, and has since appeared in films such as the prison drama Midnight Express (1978), the science-fiction horror film Alien (1979), the adventure film Rob Roy (1995), the political thriller V for Vendetta (2006), the sci-fi adventure film Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008), the Harry Potter film series (2001-2011), the Hellboy films (2004 and 2008), and the Cold War espionage film Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011). Hurt is one of Britain's best-known and most prolific actors, and has had a versatile career spanning six decades. He is also known for his many Shakespearean roles. His character's final scene in Alien has been named by a number of publications as one of the most memorable in cinematic history.
Early life
Hurt was born in Chesterfield, Derbyshire, the son of Phyllis (née Massey), an amateur actress and engineer, and Arnould Herbert Hurt, a mathematician who became an Anglican clergyman and served as vicar of Shirebrook. Hurt's father was also a vicar at St John's Church in Sunderland. In 1937, he 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 1952.
In 1945, Hurt's father founded 1st Woodville (St. Stephen's) Scout Group, which is still going today. Hurt had a strict upbringing; the family lived opposite a cinema, but he was not allowed to see films there. He was also not permitted to mix with local children because his parents saw them as "too common".
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, and his first role was that of a girl in a school production of The Bluebird (L'Oiseau Bleu) by Maurice Maeterlinck. While he was a pupil at the school, he was abused by Donald Cormack (now deceased), then Senior Master of the school and later Head Teacher (until his retirement in 1981). Hurt described how Cormack would remove his two false front teeth and put his tongue in the boys' mouths, and how he would rub their faces with his stubble. Hurt said that the experience affected him hugely.
Hurt's father moved to Old Clee Church in Grimsby, Lincolnshire. Hurt (then aged 12) became a boarder at Christ's Hospital School (then a grammar school) in Lincoln, because he had failed the entrance exam for admission to his brother's school. Hurt often accompanied his mother to Cleethorpes Repertory Theatre, but his parents disliked his acting ambitions and encouraged him to become an art teacher instead. His headmaster, Mr Franklin, laughed when Hurt told him he wanted to be an actor, telling him that he "wouldn't stand a chance in the profession".
Aged 17, Hurt enrolled in Grimsby Art School (now the East Coast School of Art & Design), where he studied art. In 1959, Hurt won a scholarship allowing him to study for an Art Teacher's Diploma (ATD) at Saint Martin's School of Art in London. Despite the scholarship, paying for his studies was financially difficult, so he persuaded some of his friends to pose nude and sold the portraits. In 1960, he won a scholarship to RADA, where he trained for two years. He was then cast in small roles on television.
Career
Hurt's first film was The Wild and the Willing (1962), but his first major role was as Richard Rich in A Man for All Seasons (1966). In 1971 he played Timothy Evans, who was hanged for murders committed by his landlord John Christie, in 10 Rillington Place, earning him his first BAFTA nomination for Best Supporting Actor. His portrayal of Quentin Crisp in the 1975 TV play The Naked Civil Servant gave him prominence and earned him the British Academy Television Award for Best Actor. The following year, Hurt won further acclaim for his bravura performance as the Roman emperor Caligula in the BBC drama serial, I, Claudius. In the 2002 TV documentary I Claudius: A Television Epic, 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 part. In 1978 he appeared in 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). Hurt voiced Hazel, the heroic rabbit leader of his warren in the film adaptation of Watership Down and later played the major villain, General Woundwort, in the animated television series version.
His roles at the end of the 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s included Kane, the first victim of the title creature in the film Alien (a role which he reprised as a parody in Spaceballs); would-be art school radical Scrawdyke in Little Malcolm; and "John" Merrick in the Joseph Merrick biography The Elephant Man, for which he won another BAFTA and was nominated for a Golden Globe and an Academy Award for Best Actor. In 1978 he lent his voice to Ralph Bakshi's animated film adaptation of Lord of the Rings, playing the role of Aragorn. He also had a starring role in Sam Peckinpah's critically panned but moderately successful final film, The Osterman Weekend (1983). Also in 1983 he starred as the Fool opposite Laurence Olivier's King in King Lear. Hurt also appeared as Raskolnikov in the 1979 BBC TV mini-series adaptation of Crime and Punishment.
Hurt played Winston Smith in the 1984 film adaptation of the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. In 1985 he starred in Disney's The Black Cauldron, voicing the film's main antagonist, the Horned King. In 1986, Hurt provided the voiceover for AIDS: Iceberg / Tombstone, a public information film warning of the dangers of AIDS. In 1988 he played the title role, the on-screen narrator, in Jim Henson's The StoryTeller TV series. He had a supporting role as "Bird" O'Donnell in Jim Sheridan's 1990 film The Field, which garnered him another BAFTA nomination. In 1997, Hurt played the reclusive tycoon S.R. Hadden in Contact.
In 2001, he played Mr Ollivander, the wand-maker, in the first Harry Potter film, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. 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 â€" Part 1 and Part 2. In 1999, Hurt provided narration on the British musical group Art of Noise's concept album The Seduction of Claude Debussy. During this time, he narrated a four-part TV series The Universe which was released on DVD in 1999. In the 2006 film V for Vendetta he played the role of Adam Sutler, leader of the Norsefire fascist dictatorship. In May 2008, he appeared in Steven Spielberg's Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull as Harold Oxley. He is also the voice of The Great Dragon Kilgharrah, who aids the young warlock Merlin as he protects the future king Arthur, in the BBC television series Merlin.
In 2008, 33 years after The Naked Civil Servant, Hurt reprised the role of Quentin Crisp in An Englishman in New York. This film depicts Crisp's later years in New York.
In June 2009, Hurt played the on-screen Big Brother for Paper Zoo Theatre Company's production of Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. 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."
At the 65th British Academy Film Awards Hurt won the award for Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema.
In 2013 Hurt appeared in the Doctor Who 50th anniversary episode "The Day of the Doctor", as a 'forgotten' incarnation of the Doctor, known as the War Doctor.
Hurt is due to appear alongside Ben Kingsley in a film entitled Broken Dream, to be directed by Neil Jordan.
Personal life
Hurt has an older brother, Br. Anselm (born Michael), a Roman Catholic convert who became a monk and writer at Glenstal Abbey; Hurt has contributed to his brother's books. Hurt also has an adopted sister, Monica. In 1962, Hurt's father left his parish in Cleethorpes to become headmaster of St. Michael's College in the Central American country of British Honduras. In that same year, Hurt first performed on the London stage and married actress Annette Robertson. The marriage ended in 1964. In 1967, he began his longest relationship, with French model Marie-Lise Volpeliere-Pierrot, sister of fashion photographer Jean-Claude Volpeliere-Pierrot. The couple had planned to get married after 15 years, when events took a tragic turn on 26 January 1983; Hurt and Volpeliere-Pierrot went horse riding early in the morning near their house in Ascott-under-Wychwood, Oxfordshire. Volpeliere-Pierrot was thrown off her horse and suffered a fall. She went into a coma and died later that day. Hurt's mother died in 1975, and his father died in 1999 at the age of 95. In September 1984, Hurt married his old friend, American actress Donna Peacock, at a local Register Office. The couple moved to Kenya, but divorced in January 1990.
On 24 January 1990, Hurt married American production assistant Joan Dalton, whom he had met while filming Scandal. With her he had two sons: Alexander "Sasha" John Vincent Hurt (born 6 February 1990) and Nicholas "Nick" Hurt (born 5 February 1993), who are currently residing in County Waterford, Ireland. Nick has gone to acting school in England and wishes to follow in his father's footsteps. This marriage ended in 1996 and was followed with a seven-year relationship with Dublin-born presenter and writer Sarah Owens. The couple moved to County Wicklow, where they settled close to their friends, director John Boorman, and Claddagh Records founder and Guinness heir The Hon Garech de Brún. In July 2002 the couple separated. In March 2005, Hurt married his fourth wife, advertising film producer Anwen Rees Meyers. He now lives near Cromer, Norfolk.
In 2007 Hurt took part in the BBC genealogical television series Who Do You Think You Are?, which investigated part of his family history. Prior to participating in the programme, Hurt had harboured a love of Ireland and was enamoured of a 'deeply beguiling' family legend that suggested his great-grandmother had been the illegitimate daughter of Irish nobleman the Marquess of Sligo. The genealogical evidence uncovered seemed to contradict the family legend, rendering the 'suggestion' doubtful. Coincidentally the search revealed that his great-grandmother had previously lived in Grimsby at a location within a mile of the art college at which Hurt had once enrolled.
Appointments and honours
Honours
In 2004, Hurt was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE). He was knighted in the 2015 New Year Honours for services to drama.
Charity patron
Since 2003, Hurt has been a patron of the Proteus Syndrome Foundation, both in the United Kingdom and in the USA. Proteus syndrome is the condition that Joseph Merrick, who Hurt played in The Elephant Man, is thought to have suffered from, although Merrick's exact condition is still not known with certainty.
Since 2006, Hurt has been a patron of Project Harar, a UK-based charity working in Ethiopia for children with facial disfigurements.
Since 2009 he has been patron of QUAD, an arts centre in Derby. On 25 September 2009 Hurt visited QUAD and took part in a Q&A directly preceding a screening of the film Night Train as part of the festivities, celebrating QUAD's first birthday (it opened on 26 September 2008). The following day he was guest of honour at Derby County vs Bristol City and went onto the pitch at Pride Park at half-time to oversee a prize draw.
Hurt was announced as patron of Norwich Cinema City in March 2013.
University degrees and appointments
In January 2002, Hurt received an honorary degree from the University of Derby.
In January 2006 he received an honorary degree of Doctor of Letters from the University of Hull.
In 2012 he was appointed the first Chancellor of Norwich University of the Arts.
On 23 January 2013 he was made an Honorary Doctor of Arts by the University of Lincoln, at Lincoln Cathedral.
Filmography
Films
Television
Video games
- Privateer 2: The Darkening (1996) â€" Joe the Bartender
- Tender Loving Care (1998) â€" Dr. Turner
Other projects and contributions
- When Love Speaks (2002, EMI Classics) â€" "Sonnet 145"
("Those lips that Love's own hand did make") - Hurt performs in drag for the promotional video for Attitude by the music group Suede.
- Hurt is seen as the 'Brian Epstein' esque mogul in Paul McCartney's 1982 video for his song "Take It Away". McCartney explains in the video commentary section of The McCartney Years DVD (for the song 'Take it Away') that Hurt himself was a friend of the Beatles and Brian Epstein, and that the Beatles had watched Hurt act in the mid-'60s and thought him a fine actor.
- Hurt is the narrator of the 1995 Discovery Channel documentary On Jupiter.
- Narrator on the album The Seduction of Claude Debussy by the band Art of Noise (1999).
- Hurt is the narrator of the 4 part series The Universe for Channel 4 International, released in 1999 and available on DVD.
- Hurt co-starred alongside Kiefer Sutherland in the 10 part web series The Confession.
- Hurt can also be heard during the BBC's introduction to the 2012 British Grand Prix Qualifying Show
- A line from the movie Nineteen Eighty-Four, featuring the voice of Hurt can be heard as the introduction to the Manic Street Preachers song "Faster"
- In two volumes of a documentary called Life in the Animal Kingdom: Untamed Africa, filmed in the Maasai Mara Game Preserve in Kenya (the two volumes being called Hunter and Hunted and Survival on the Serengeti), Hurt served as the narrator.
- Benjamin Britten â€" Peace and Conflict, a British feature film written and directed by Tony Britten - narrator.
- Narrator for the BBC 5 live documentary "The day we won Wimbledon."
- Narrator of the Mercedes F1 Team video ad based on the poem "If-" by Rudyard Kipling
References
External links
- John Hurt at the Internet Movie Database
- John Hurt at the British Film Institute's Screenonline
- John Hurt Official Website
- Actor's Compendium
- Biography on BBC site
- Receiving his honorary degree from Hull University in January 2006
- March 2006 Observer article
- Project Harar
- John Hurt lights a candle for Rwanda
- John Hurt narrates Human Planet 2011
