A svelte, subtle actor cursed with matinee-idol looks, Dutch leading man Rutger Hauer occupies a singular niche in cinema; equally acclaimed by art house snoots and B-movie junkies.
Hauer arrived on the coat-tails of Low Countries auteur turned overblown Hollywood major leaguer Paul Verhoeven. A regular fixture in his edgy early projects, Hauer followed his mentor to the US in the 1980s, turning in a string of powerhouse performances before succumbing to the lure of the burgeoning straight-to-video market.
Within months, Hauer had become a low-rent action hunk, the guy casting agents turned to when Bruce Willis stopped answering their calls.
Born to actor parents in 1944, Hauer was a disruptive youth. He left school at 15 and travelled with the Dutch merchant navy.
When colour blindness made it impossible for him to continue at sea, he returned to his native Amsterdam. A brief stint in the army ended after he convinced his superiors he was mentally unstable. The episode confirmed Hauer's innate acting talents, and he began working in regional theatre, honing his stagecraft in parish halls and youth clubs.
By the late 1960s, Hauer was a rising star in Dutch television. A chance meeting with Verhoeven secured him the lead in the abrasive young filmmaker's explicit 1972 romance, Turkish Delight. His earthy portrayal of a Dutch resistance fighter in Verhoeven's 1979 war paean, Soldier of Orange, garnered rave notices and brought him to the attention of Sylvester Stallone, in those days flexing his brawn as a studio player.
Filling the bad guy's boots in the mundane 1980 heist fandango, Nighthawks, he blew Stallone off the screen. Celluloid immortality arrived months later with Ridley Scott's bleary cyberpunk fantasy, Bladerunner.
Lamentably, the rug slipped from under him soon afterwards, a decline hastened by his rising profile as an environmental campaigner. He romped through 1985's cuddly swords-and- sorcery epic, Ladyhawke, and came off lightly in that year's Flesh and Blood, Verhoeven's tempestuous dΘbut foray into English language filmmaking.
It has since been a steady slide into anonymity. He made good work of Split Second, a lost science fiction classic, and, as the late 1980s public face of Guinness, proved a master of ironic detachment. But Hauer couldn't save moribund bilge such as Salute to the Jugger, Desert Law and Bone Daddy. By the time Interview with the Vampire author Anne Rice exposed Hauer as the inspiration for her blood-guzzling anti-hero Lestat (portrayed by Tom Cruise in Neil Jordan's adaptation), many people wondered who she was talking about.
The Dutch movie industry recently declared Hauer the Netherlands' greatest 20th-century actor, commissioning a postage stamp in his honour. Less partisan devotees will bemoan an exquisite talent frittered away in a trawl for easy bucks.
More on Rutger Hauer at www.rutgerhauer.com
