Actor Terence Stamp has died. He was 87.
“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,” Stamp’s family said in a statement shared with Reuters on Sunday, August 17, confirming the actor’s death. “We ask for privacy at this sad time.”
The Oscar winner notably played the villainous General Zod in Superman and Superman II. He also famously starred in 1994’s The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and had recent roles in 2019’s Murder Mystery, His Dark Materials the following year and Last Night in Soho in 2021.
“The first film I ever saw was called Beau Geste with Gary Cooper. My mother took me to see that. I was probably under four years old,” Stamp recalled of his acting inspirations during a 2013 interview with the BFI. “It was Cooper playing a soldier in the Foreign Legion. I didn’t realize the impact, but it made an indelible impression on me.”
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When Stamp told his parents of his acting ambitions, they were supportive of his career.
“Of course, my mother loved every second of it. In retrospect, my mother must have always wanted me to do it and must have wished that she could have been more supportive,” he added to the outlet. “But my dad was the head of the family and I never really knew what he thought of it because he was of that generation. He was a merchant seaman, he shoveled coal, and in that confined living quarters any show of emotion would have been considered unbearably flash. By the time the war finished, he was really emotionally closed down. He never congratulated me. He must have been enormously proud, but he never communicated that with anybody.”
Stamp even channeled his father’s seafaring career in his debut film, Billy Budd.
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“I guess it was in the DNA. I always felt at home on those old galleons. I did get seasick, but once I got used to the motion, I was fine,” Stamp quipped to the BFI. “I guess there were a lot of things that came out [in my performance] that I wasn’t aware of then. I saw some clips of it when I was at the Lille film festival. They showed the big scene between myself and Robert Ryan. I was amazed how good it was.”
As for Stamp’s personal life, he was married to Elizabeth O’Rourke from 2002 to 2008.
