Obituary: William Hurt was a leading man of the 1980s on stage and screen

NEW YORK (NYTIMES) - William Hurt, who became a hot Hollywood commodity for his performance as hapless lawyer Ned Racine in Body Heat in 1981, and within a few years had won the Best Actor Oscar for the 1985 film Kiss Of The Spider Woman, in which he portrayed a gay man sharing a Brazilian prison cell with a revolutionary, died at his home in Portland, Oregon, on March 13. He was 71.

One of his sons, Alexander Hurt, said the cause was complications of prostate cancer.

Tall, blond and speaking in a measured cadence that lent a cerebral quality to his characters, Hurt was a leading man in some of the most popular films of the 1980s, including The Big Chill (1983), Children Of A Lesser God (1986), Broadcast News (1987) and The Accidental Tourist (1988).

Children Of A Lesser God and Broadcast News earned him Oscar nominations for Best Actor as well, meaning he had the heady distinction of being nominated for that award for three consecutive years.

In later years, Hurt transitioned from leading man to supporting roles. He was nominated for another Academy Award, this time for best supporting actor, for A History Of Violence (2005).

Ms Janet Maslin wrote in The New York Times (NYT) in 1985 of the "brilliant achievement" of Hurt and his co-star Raul Julia in Kiss Of The Spider Woman.

"Mr Hurt won a well-deserved Best Actor award at the Cannes Film Festival for a performance that is crafty at first, carefully nurtured and finally stirring in profound, unanticipated ways," she wrote.

"What starts out as a campy, facetious catalogue of Hollywood trivia becomes an extraordinarily moving film about manhood, heroism and love."

Before he broke into films, Hurt was an in-demand stage actor, working frequently at Circle Repertory in New York, among other venues.

In 1985, he was nominated for a Tony Award for best featured actor in a play for his work in Hurlyburly, a David Rabe play directed by Mike Nichols and featuring a loaded cast that included Cynthia Nixon, Sigourney Weaver, Harvey Keitel and Jerry Stiller.

Despite Hurt's successes as a leading man in Hollywood, he told NYT in 1990 that "theatre is a language I speak better or am more tuned into than English".

"Even one moment on stage is a glacier of comprehension," he added. "That's where the work is. And it's as fascinating to study as any other science."

His screen work was often mesmerising. His acting had an ease to it even as he was creating complex characters. His first major film role was in Ken Russell's science-fiction thriller Altered States in 1980. The following year brought the crime drama Eyewitness, in which he again starred opposite Weaver. Later that year came the steamy Body Heat with Kathleen Turner.

"Once again, Mr Hurt establishes himself as an instantly affable screen star, an actor who combines some of Dustin Hoffman's best qualities with some of Jeff Bridges'," Ms Maslin wrote in reviewing that film for the Times.

"He seems thoughtful, wry and funny, yet he has a comfortable physical presence too, and a friendliness that's uncomplicatedly disarming."

Later in his career, Hurt played roles large and small. In a 2009 interview with the Times, he explained: "I don't have to be the star, physically. My greatest offering is my concept. It isn't my face."

In recent years, he worked more in television, including the FX series Damages (2007 to 2012), the British sci-fi drama Humans (2015 to 2018) and the 2013 television movie The Challenger Disaster.

The star was born William McChord Hurt on March 20, 1950, in Washington. He was the son of career diplomat Alfred Hurt and Time Inc employee Claire Isabel Hurt. When he was six, his parents separated and his mother married Henry Luce III, the son of Time magazine's founder.

Hurt attended Tufts University and went on to study acting at Juilliard. By the second half of the 1970s, he was drawing notice on New York stages, where he appeared in productions including the Lanford Wilson play Fifth Of July at Circle Rep in 1978. In 1981, Mr Frank Rich, reviewing Childe Byron at Circle Rep for the Times, singled him out.

"Maybe William Hurt has now been discovered by Hollywood (Altered States, Eyewitness), but he hasn't lost any of that crazy intensity that makes him a joy to watch in the theatre," his review began.

"What makes this talented actor so special - and, inevitably, a star - is his ability to create his own reality on stage. While he can create a powerful character when he wants to (as he did with Kenneth Talley in the original production of Fifth Of July), he's prepared to be fascinating without any help from a playwright."

While his acting drew raves, Hurt's personal life was rocky. He had a relationship with his co-star in Children Of A Lesser God, Marlee Matlin, that she later described as abusive.

A long-term relationship with dancer Sandra Jennings landed in court in 1989, with Jennings contending, unsuccessfully, that they were in effect married. His marriages to Mary Beth Hurt and Heidi Henderson also ended in divorce.

In addition to his son Alexander, who is from his relationship with Jennings, Hurt is survived by two sons from his marriage to Henderson, Samuel and William Jr; a daughter from his relationship with Sandrine Bonnaire, Jeanne Bonnaire-Hurt; two brothers, James Hurt and Ken O'Sullivan; and two grandchildren.