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William Hurt: a magnetic, mischievous actor who invigorated Hollywood | Peter Bradshaw
From Body Heat to Broadcast News, the imposing Hurt could always bring out a character’s dark side with exquisite subtlety
Hollywood in the 1980s was energised and enhanced by the sly beauty, masculinity and sexuality of William Hurt, who managed three best actor Oscar nominations in a row in the middle of the decade: for Kiss of the Spider Woman in 1986, Children of a Lesser God in 1987 and Broadcast News in 1988. Having morphed from sleek leading man to character actor, he later got a fourth nomination for best supporting actor, for David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence.
Hurt won for the first of these, in which he played a gay man imprisoned for sexual offences in an oppressive South American state, sharing a cell with a gruffly straight political prisoner, and escaping into florid melodramatic fantasies. He was a sinuous and yet athletic screen presence as the exotic Luis, in his gowns and turban, exquisitely beautiful but with absolutely nothing delicate or elfin about him.
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