Remembering Rutger Hauer
Dutch actor Rutger Hauer has passed away after a brief illness. He was 75. Hauer was born January 23, 1944 in Breukelen, Utrecht, Netherlands. He died July 19, 2019 in The Netherlands, and was buried July 24.
Rutger Hauer starred in many genre movies. Being multilingual, he appeared in TV shows and movies in many nations. Some of his most famous SFFH roles include:
Roy Batty in Blade Runner
Lothos in Buffy the Vampire Slayer
The Huntsman in The Tenth Kingdom
Morgan Edge in Smallville
The Ghost of Christmas Future in A Christmas Carol
President of the World State Federation in Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets
Kingsley in Galavant
Niall Brigant in True Blood
Earle in Batman Begins [“Didn’t you get the memo?”]
Cardinal Roark in Sin City
King Vortigern in Merlin
Kurt Barlow in Salem’s Lot
Van Helsing in Dracula 3D
John Ryder in The Hitcher
Rutger Hauer was born in 1944. As a teenager, he ran away to join the Dutch merchant fleet. He returned to school before enlisting in the Dutch army, and became an actor like his parents. His first major role was as Sir Floris in the TV show Floris in 1969. He later became famous as an international heartthrob, an action hero, and a villain.
He used his fame to help social causes as a sponsor of the environmental organization Greenpeace. He founded the Starfish Association, a non-profit devoted to AIDS awareness.
He is survived by his second wife, Ineke ten Kate, his daughter Aysha Hauer, and his grandson, Leandro Maeder. He had three sisters. I don’t know if they predeceased him or survived him. His mother Teunke Mellema Hauer was born in 1906 and died in 1979. His father Arend Hauer (1909–1985)also died at the age of 75.
Several fans noted that Mynheer Hauer died in 2019, the same year his character in Blade Runner died.
Before today, I had never heard of Floris, Rutger Hauer’s 1969 B&W TV show about Sir Floris, a knight who returns from the Crusades with his Indian sidekick, Sindala. I watched a bit on YouTube and it was good. Dank je for English subtitles.
The show was revived in 1975 as Floris von Rosemond, with a different actor playing Sindala.
Vaarwel, Mynheer Hauer. You’ll not be soon forgotten.
