Terence Stamp, the British hottie who received critical acclaim for his roles as the lead character in Billy Budd and the arch-villain in early Superman movies, passed away on Sunday. He was eighty-seven.
Stamp’s death was verified to NPR by a representative, but the cause was not disclosed.
“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 Stamp family said in a statement.
Frequently linked to the Swinging ’60s, Stamp rose to fame as an actor due to his unique appearance and his ability to play a variety of roles, ranging from a lowly sailor to a super-villain with a fear of the dark.He was referred to by the Guardian as the “master of the brooding silence,” yet he defied typecasting by taking chances and embracing his versatility.
In The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, he portrayed a transsexual lady traveling by car. When the movie was first released in 1994, critic Roger Eberts wrote: “At the beginning of the film we’re distracted by the unexpected sight of Terence Stamp in drag, but Stamp is able to bring a convincing humanity to the character.”
Stamponce said about her role as the drag queen: “I was incredibly frightened about it it’s not anything I have ever done, but I happened to be having an afternoon tea with a fellow actress who was a very wise woman and she was flicking through my script and told me to do it.”
It became one of the most iconic Australian films of the generation, earned 16 million dollars at the box office, and won the Oscar for outstanding costume design.
Stamp, who was born in East London and is the son of a homemaker and a tugboat worker, has stated that his working-class upbringing distinguished him from other actors, the most of whom at the time were from more affluent homes.
Before pursuing theater in England despite the advise of his father and school counselors, he experimented with various careers, including as advertising and a brief stint in a hospital.
“When I asked for career guidance at school, they recommended bricklaying as a good, regular job,” he told the Sunday Business Post in 2011.
Stamphas claimed that he was a “very emotionally closed down guy” after his father returned from World War II, but he attributes his desire to pursue acting to his mother, describing her as a “inveterate moviegoer” in his memoir.
Stamp’s breakthrough part came at the age of 24 in Billy Budd, which was based on a Herman Melville novel. Critics praised Stamp’s “sinewy, boyish frame and the face of a Botticelli angel” for being the ideal lead-role sailor. He received a Golden Globe for most promising male debut and an Oscar nomination for the movie.
Despite a period of prosperity in the 1960s, he moved to an Indian ashram in 1969 and, following a separation with a romantic partner, became a swami. However, Stamp said that his inability to find acting work was the true reason he relocated.
“Producers wanted a young Terence Stamp, but I was 32 and in my prime. It was quite embarrassing,” he wrote in The Business Post, an Irish newspaper.
He subsequently recalled in his memoir that everything changed when he got a telegram at a hotel in India asking him to come back to London so he could appear in the Superman movies. “YOU HAVE SCENES WITH MARLON BRANDO,” announced the telegram.
His role as the alien evil General Zod in the early Superman movies is arguably his most well-known performance, while his career included more than 60 blockbusters and arthouse productions.
In his autobiography, The Ocean Fell into the Drop, Stamp talks about how Cary Grant’s performance in the 1947 classic Christmas comedy The Bishop’s Wife captivated him at a young age.
“When I discovered he’d been born Archie Leech and was a working-class lad from Bristol, I was impressed in ways it’s hard to explain,” Stamp said. “I didn’t stop watching television.”
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