Actor Rutger Hauer, who starred in 1982’s Blade Runner, has died at the age of 75. The star died in the Netherlands on Friday after a short illness, his agent confirmed. Hauer played the murderous replicant Roy Batty in Blade Runner, which was directed by Ridley Scott and also starred Harrison Ford. The actor’s funeral was held on Wednesday. Hauer was particularly well known for horror and vampire roles, starring as Van Helsing in Dracula 3D, and as the vampire Barlow in Salem’s lot – a 2004 mini series of the Stephen King novel.
His career began in 1969 with the title role in the Dutch television series Floris, and surged with the hugely successful Turkish Delight in 1973. After rising to international stardom with Soldier of Orange in 1977, he moved into American films such as Nighthawks, as an international terrorist, and Blade Runner, as existentially aware android Roy Batty. That acclaimed performance bought leading roles in titles such as The Osterman Weekend, Ladyhawke, Flesh+Blood, The Hitcher, Escape from Sobibor (for which he won a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor), Blind Fury, The Blood of Heroes and Wedlock. In the 1990s he began to move into prominent supporting roles in films including Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Sin City, Batman Begins and The Rite, with occasional starring roles such as Hobo with a Shotgun.
Hauer was an environmentalist. Hauer also established an AIDS awareness organization called the Rutger Hauer Starfish Association. Hauer married his second wife, Ineke ten Cate, in 1985 (they had been together since 1968 ). He had one child with his first wife Heidi Merz, actress Aysha Hauer (born 1966), who made him a grandfather in 1987. In April 2007, he published his autobiography All Those Moments: Stories of Heroes, Villains, Replicants, and Blade Runners (co-written with Patrick Quinlan), in which he discussed many of his movie roles.