Film actor, born in Breukelen, The Netherlands. The son of actor parents, he left school early to join an experimental theatre company. His screen debut came in a European film Turkish Delight (1973). He made an English-speaking debut in The Wilby Conspiracy (1975), but when this failed to establish him in Hollywood, he returned to making European films. International recognition came with Nighthawks (1981), Blade Runner (1982), and Hitcher (1986). Later films include Blind Fury (1990), Past Midnight (1992), Simon Magus (1999), Salem's Lot (TV, 2004), and Batman Begins (2005).
Rutger Hauer|
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| Born: |
January 23, 1944 Breukelen, the Netherlands |
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| Occupation: | actor, film director |
| Spouse: | Ineke Hauer |
| Website: | www.rutgerhauer.org |
Rutger Oelsen Hauer (IPA: [rʏtxɛr ulsɛn hʌuɛr]) (born in Breukelen, January 23, 1944) is a Dutch film actor.
Background
Born in Breukelen, the Netherlands to drama teachers Arend and Teunke, Rutger Hauer grew up in Amsterdam but at age 15 ran off to sea and spent a year scrubbing decks aboard a freighter.
Film career
His career changed course when director Paul Verhoeven cast him as the lead in Turkish Delight (1973) (based on the Jan Wolkers book of the same name). The movie found box-office favour abroad as well as at home and within two years, its star was invited to make his English language debut in the British film The Wilby Conspiracy (1975). Hauer's supporting role, however, was hardly enough to establish him in Hollywood's eyes, and he returned to Dutch film making for several years.
Hauer went on to be the adventurer courting Gene Hackman's daughter (Theresa Russell) in Nicholas Roeg's poorly received Eureka (1983), the investigative reporter opposite John Hurt in Sam Peckinpah's The Osterman Weekend (1983), and the knight paired with Michelle Pfeiffer in the medieval romance Ladyhawke (1985).
Italian director Ermanno Olmi mined the gentler, more mystic and soulful side of Hauer's personality in The Legend of the Holy Drinker (1989), the story of a lost soul who dies of drink in Paris while attempting to pay a debt of honour in a church.
By the 1990s, Hauer was as well known for his humorous appearances in Guinness commercials as for his screen roles. In the late 1980s and 1990s, as well as 2000, he also appeared in several British and American television productions, including Inside the Third Reich (as Albert Speer), Escape from Sobibor, Fatherland, Hostile Waters, Merlin, The 10th Kingdom, Smallville and Alias.
Comeback
Hauer has recently been on the comeback trail as small parts in big films, again playing villains with Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2003), Sin City (2005), and Batman Begins (2005), as well as playing the Host in the British reality television documentary Shock Treatment (2005).
Other activities
Hauer is a dedicated environmentalist.
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