Oscar Award-winning actor and Marvel Cinematic Universe cast member William Hurt has passed away at the age of 71. Hurt died Sunday, March 13, just a week before his 72nd birthday at his home in Portland, Oregon.
The classically trained stage actor transitioned to the big screen. He starred in some of the biggest hits of the 1980s and 90s. Among his best-known films are Body Heat, Children of a Lesser God, and Broadcast News. He won an Oscar for his role as Luis Molina, a transvestite window dresser locked imprisoned with Raul Julia in 1985’s Kiss of the Spider Woman. It was his first of three consecutive Best Actor nominations between 1985 and 1987. He was also nominated for Best Supporting Actor in 2005 for A History Of Violence.
Over his career, he played in a wide range of film genres. He appeared in several MCU films as General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross, first appearing in 2008’s Incredible Hulk. Over the past decade, Ross appeared four more times in the MCU in Captain America Civil War, Avengers Infinity War, and Avengers Endgame. General Ross last appeared in 2020’s Black Widow.
Early in his film career, he frequently collaborated with screenwriter and director Lawrence Kasden. After teaming together for Body Heat in 1981, he starred in the auteur’s The Big Chill in 1983. In 1988, starred in Kasden’s The Accidental Tourist. The two paired together one final time in 1990 in I Love You To Death.
Hurt also played the Robinson family patriarch, John, in the 1998 cinematic reimagining of Lost in Space.
Hurt’s son, William, told The Hollywood Reporter of the actor’s passing but did not share his cause of death. In 2018, the actor shared the story of his fight with prostate cancer. Hurt pursued a new experimental cancer therapy called Side Effect-Free (SEF) Chemotherapy, developed by researchers at Berkeley, an alternative treatment without the traditional chemo side effects.
Hurt is survived by his four children and two ex-wives.
