John Hurt

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For the singer, see Mississippi John Hurt

John Hurt as Chancellor Adam Sutler in V for Vendetta.

John Vincent Hurt CBE (born January 22, 1940) is an Academy Award nominated English actor. He is one of Britain's best-known and most sought after character actors, and has had a very versatile career spanning over 40 years.

1 Biography
- 1.1 Early life
- 1.2 Career
2 Selected filmography
3 External links

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early life

Hurt was born in Chesterfield, Derbyshire to Phyllis, an amateur actor, and Arnould Herbert Hurt, a clergyman. Hurt studied art at the St. Martin's School for Art, but turned to the stage in 1962. He performed with the Royal Shakespeare Company, and trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA). He was also for many years an alcoholic, yet has since rid himself of his addiction.

[edit] Career

John Hurt as Winston Smith in the 1984 film adaption of Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Hurt's first film was 1962's The Wild and the Willing, but his first major role was as Richard Rich in 1966's A Man for All Seasons. However, it was his portrayal of the outrageous Quentin Crisp in the 1975 TV play, The Naked Civil Servant, that shot him to fame, earning the British Academy Television Award for Best Actor in the process. The following year, Hurt portrayed the infamous Roman emperor Caligula in the major BBC drama serial, I, Claudius. He subsequently developed a successful film career, with his best known roles including Kane, the memorable 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 as "John" Merrick in the Joseph Merrick biography The Elephant Man, for which he won a Bafta. He also had a starring role in Sam Peckinpah's critically panned but hugely successful final film, The Osterman Weekend (1983).

Hurt, who played Winston Smith in the 1984 adaptation of the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, assumed the role of a Big Brother-esque leader of a fascist Great Britain in the 2006 film V for Vendetta, a movie which draws many parallels to the world of Nineteen Eighty-Four. In a similar parallel, Hurt played 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.