Terence Stamp, the veteran British actor who rose to global stardom playing villains in a 60-plus year career, has died. He was 87.
The Oscar-nominated star’s roles stretched from playing General Zod opposite Christopher Reeve in Superman to Bernadette Bassenger, a transgender performer, in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert in 1994 – and plenty more in between.
The octogenarian died on Sunday morning, his family said in a statement. The cause was not immediately made public.
File/17th October 1967: Actor Terence Stamp and model Celia Hammond attend the film premiere of ‘Far from the Madding Crowd’ in which he stars. The premiere was at the Odeon, Marble Arch, London. (Central Press/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
“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 statement said as reported by Reuters.
Terence Henry Stamp was born in London’s East End in 1938, the son of a tugboat coal stoker and a mother who Stamp said gave him his zest for life.
As a child he endured the bombing of the capital during World War Two and the deprivations that followed, Reuters notes.
Actor Terence Stamp pictured in a park in London, 13th September 1962. (Arthur Sidey/Daily Mirror/Mirrorpix/Getty Images)
“The great blessing of my life is that I had the really hard bit at the beginning because we were really poor,” he said, recalling an early life before stardom came to call.
More to come…
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