STARBURST is incredibly sad to learn that the Award-winning actor Sir John Hurt CBE has passed away aged 77.

Born John Vincent Hurt in Chesterfield on January 22nd, 1940, he became a star of stage, screen, and television, appearing in many iconic roles, from playing Quentin Crisp in the biopic The Naked Civil Servant (1975) – a role he’d reprise in 2008 in An Englishman in New York, John Merrick in David Lynch’s The Elephant Man (1980), to Winston Smith in the adaptation of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984). He recently joined the ranks of the Time Lords, playing the War Doctor for the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who, a role he continued to reprise in the Big Finish audio dramas.

That stunning voice he possessed also graced such classic films as Watership Down (1978) and The Lord of the Rings (1978).

Some other roles Hurt was famous for include the wrongly hanged Timothy Evans in 10 Rillington Place – for which he won his first BAFTA award for Best Supporting Actor, and the Roman emperor Caligula in the BBC drama serial I, Claudius. For many genre fans, he will perhaps be best-remembered for the role of Kane in Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979), mainly due to the legendary chestburster scene – a role he would spoof in Mel Brooks’ later Spaceballs.

People of a certain age will also remember him as the title narrator in Jim Henson’s The Storyteller on TV.

An incredibly talented actor, he will be greatly missed.
All at STARBURST send their thoughts to his family and friends.

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