William Hurt, a leading man of 1980s Hollywood who rose to stardom as a cocky but indolent lawyer in Body Heat, won an Oscar for playing a gay man jailed under a South American dictatorship in Kiss of the Spider Woman and later established himself as a versatile, mould-breaking character actor, has died aged 71.
Hurt made his film debut in the 1980 psychedelic horror film Altered States, playing an obsessed scientist whose experiments with sensory deprivation lead him to turn into a primeval, apelike creature. The next year, he delivered his breakout performance in director Lawrence Kasdan’s neo-noir thriller Body Heat, as a south Florida lawyer seduced by Kathleen Turner and roped into murdering her husband.
