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Terence Stamp, one of the stellar faces of British 60s cinema, who had a second act from the late 1970s onwards as a character actor in the likes of Superman: The Movie, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and The Limey, has died aged 87.
His family said in a statement that Stamp had died on Sunday morning. “He leaves behind an extraordinary body of work, both as an actor and as a writer that will continue to touch and inspire people for years to come,” the family said. “We ask for privacy at this sad time.”
Stephen Frears, who directed Stamp in the 1984 thriller The Hit told the Guardian: “He was a fine man and a fine actor. It was an honour to have directed him.”
Stamp became one of British cinema’s glamour figures in its most fashionable decade, scoring early high profile roles in Billy Budd and The Collector (for directors Peter Ustinov and Willam Wyler respectively). His relationship with model Jean Shrimpton in the mid-60s ensured both were key faces of the the decade, and Stamp became one of its most photographed people as well as a significant part of the new wave of working class actors and musicians that fuelled Britain’s pre-eminent position in the entertainment industry.
Born in the tough working-class district of Bow in London, Stamp grew up the son of tugboat sailor in the slightly less tough area of Plaistow, and won a scholarship to drama school. His brother Chris also became a high profile figure, as manager of music acts including the Who and Jimi Hendrix. After meeting during a tour of The Long the Short and the Tall, Stamp shared a flat will fellow up-and-coming actor Michael Caine, who Stamp later described as his “guru”. Stamp’s first major screen role was in 1962 in Billy Budd, for which he received an Oscar nomination for best supporting actor; this broight him to the attention of Hollywood and he was given the lead role in Wyler’s 1965 adaptation of John Fowles’ serial killer story The Collector.
Stamp’s subsequent acting career in the 1960s was erratic. He lost out to Sean Connery as James Bond, and was replaced in the lead role of Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blowup by David Hemmings. However he starred opposite Antonioni favoured star Monica Vitti in Modesty Blaise (directed byJoseph Losey), appeared in Ken Loach’s hard hitting debut Poor Cow, and starred opposite former girlfriend Julie Christie in Far From the Madding Crowd, adapted from Thomas Hardy’s novel.
In 1968 Stamp then appeared in two films for Italian auteurs: Federico Fellini cast him in his section of the three-part omnibus film Spirits of the Dead adapted from Edgar Allan Poe, while Pasolini gave him the lead role in his allegorical masterpiece Theorem. Stamp later told the Guardian: “Pasolini told me: ‘A stranger arrives, makes love to everybody, and leaves. This is your part.’ I said: ‘I can do that!’”
However Stamp’s profile declined sharply at the end of the decade and work dried up; he told the Guardian: “It was a mystery to me. I was in my prime. When the 1960s ended, I just ended with it. I remember my agent telling me: ‘They are all looking for a young Terence Stamp.’ … I couldn’t believe it.” Stamp went to India and stayed on an ashram – and was eventually recalled by the film industry with an offer to play the villainous General Zod in Superman: The Movie, released in 1978.
Stamp later said he had to come to terms with no longer being the lead actor. “I had transmuted myself. I no longer saw myself as a leading man. What had happened inside of me enabled me to take the role, and not feel embarassed or depressed about playing the villain. I just decided I was a character actor now.”
Stamp returned to British cinema in the 1980s, starring opposite John Hurt and Tim Roth in Frears’ The Hit, and had a cameo as the Devil in Neil Jordan’s literary horror film The Company of Wolves. He subsequently alternated safe-bet Hollywood roles with more adventurous work. In 1994 he played trans cabaret performer Bernadette Bassenger in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (receiving Bafta and Golden Globe nominations), followed by a lead role in Steven Soderbergh’s revenge thriller The Limey.
The subsequent decades saw more high profile castings as interest grew in his earlier work, including roles in Star Wars Episode I – The Phantom Menace, Wanted and The Adjustment Bureau, while another juicy British cinema role came his way opposite Vanessa Redgrave in Song for Marion. More recently he appeared in Big Eyes and Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children for Tim Burton, and his most recently released film credit was Last Night in Soho, the retro-inspired horror-thriller directed by Edgar Wright.
Despite a string of high-profile relationships, including Christie and Shrimpton, Stamp married once in 2002 to Elizabeth O’Rourke; they divorced in 2008.
