Rutger Hauer  Bio 

Rutger Oelsen Hauer was born in Breukelen, a town a few miles south of
Amsterdam, on January 23, 1944. His parents, Arend and Teunke,
together ran a school for actors, both teaching.

Whilst Hauer's first stage appearance came when he was only five, his
first significant role was in the Sophocles tragedy, Ajaxin at the age
of eleven, and he made his film debut a year later in Asmodée.
However, his life didn't then follow the classic pattern of so many
child actors.

He was a rebellious teenager and ran away from home to join the Dutch
Merchant Navy at the age of fifteen, spending the next year travelling
all over the world. It was during this period that he discovered his
talent for languages - something that has stood him in good stead
throughout his acting career.

At the end of this experience, when he returned to the Netherlands, he
enrolled in acting classes at night school , working during the day as
a scene decorator and carpenter. This was followed by a short stint as
a stagehand for the Antroposofisch Centrum in Basel, Switzerland,
where he met and married his first wife, and the couple had a
daughter, Aysha.

Between 1967 and 1973 Hauer toured with the Frisian Noorder Compagnie
as a director, costume designer and translator, and in 1969, while
still with the company he began a long collaboration with director
Paul Verhoeven when he stared in the TV series, Floris, and this
collaboration brought him his first real success in 1973 when he
starred in Verhoeven's Turkish Delight, which was nominated for Best
Foreign Film in that year's Academy Awards.

He went on to star in a number of European films between 1973 -1981.
As European cinema of this period was more 'liberated' it's Hollywood
counterpart, Hauer, like his contemporary Gerard Depardieu, often
played scenes involving full frontal nudity -- but in 'legitimate'
movies - neither actor indulged in porn.

In 1981 he made his first "Hollywood" movie, Nighthawks, with
Sylvester Stallone. Unlike Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has traded on
his accent, Hauer hired the well-known dialogue coach, Dr. Robert
Easton, to rid him of his, so that he could play an American as easily
as a non-American.

It was as Roy Batty in Ridley Scott's Blade Runner -- a part he was
cast in after Scott saw his performance in Paul Verhoeven's Soldaat
van Oranje -- that Hauer really made his mark, however.

Batty is an extraordinary character, apparently evil, certainly
terrifying, but as the film progresses you see depths to him and
motivations which make his actions understandable, and in the final
climax, he is not destroyer, but saviour. It is the most challenging
role in the film and Hauer's flawless performance it, along with the
incredible cinematography and set design of the movie, is what has
lifted Blade Runner into the realms of a classic. The achievement is
even more outstanding when one realises (according to an interview
with Ridley Scott in a documentary about the making of the movie) that
Batty's final death speech "I've seen things you people couldn't
believe -- attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion, I watched
C-beams glitter in the dark near Tannhauser gate. All those moments
will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die" was not as
scripted, but improvised - by a non-native English speaker in one of
his earliest English language films.

In 1985 he married his second wife Ineke, a painter and sculptor, with
whom he had been involved since his pre-Hollywood days.

Somehow, Hauer has failed to ever be a "Really Big Star", whilst
simultaneously being instantly recognisable. He works pretty much
constantly -- he has starred in many films and TV mini-series, turning
in excellent performances in roles of chilling evil, like John Ryder
in "The Hitcher", or brooding magnificence like Henri Navarre in
"Ladyhawke". He was also, for several years, the face behind Guinness
in the UK - his white-blond hair and black clothing echoing the
colours of the drink in a series of somewhat surreal advertisements.

Hauer won a Golden Globe for best supporting actor in Escape from
Sobibor and in 1999 his native Holland named him Actor of the Century
and his film Turkish Delight, Film of the century - but he doesn't
command "star" salaries or roles. He, like so many of his films,
remains something of a cult.