
Rutger Hauer
Department: Acting
Biography
Rutger Oelsen Hauer (January 23, 1944 – July 19, 2019) was a Dutch film actor. He was well known for his roles in Flesh + Blood, Blind Fury, Blade Runner, The Hitcher, Nighthawks, Sin City, Ladyhawke, The Blood of Heroes and Batman Begins. Hauer was born in Breukelen, Netherlands, to drama teachers Arend and Teunke, and grew up in Amsterdam. Since his parents were very occupied with their careers, he and his three sisters (one older, two younger) were raised mostly by nannies. At the age of 15, Hauer ran off to sea and spent a year scrubbing decks aboard a freighter. Returning home, he worked as an electrician and a carpenter for three years while attending acting classes at night school. He went on to join an experimental troupe, with which he remained for five years before he was cast in the lead role in the very successful 1969 television series Floris, a Dutch Ivanhoe-like medieval action drama. The role made him famous in his native country. Hauer's career changed course when director Paul Verhoeven cast him as the lead in Turkish Delight (1973) (based on the Jan Wolkers book of the same name). The movie found box-office favour abroad as well as at home, and within two years, its star was invited to make his English-language debut in the British film The Wilby Conspiracy (1975). Set in South Africa and starring Michael Caine and Sidney Poitier, the film was an action melodrama with a focus on apartheid. Hauer's supporting role, however, was barely noticed in Hollywood, and he returned to Dutch films for several years. Hauer made his American debut in the Sylvester Stallone vehicle Nighthawks (1981), cast as a psychopathic and cold-blooded terrorist named "Wolfgar" (after a character in the Old English poem Beowulf). The following year, he appeared in arguably his most famous and acclaimed role as the eccentric, violent, yet sympathetic replicant Roy Batty in Ridley Scott's 1982 sci-fi thriller, Blade Runner. Hauer was a dedicated environmentalist. He fought for the release of Greenpeace's co-founder, Paul Watson, who was convicted in 1994 for sinking a Norwegian whaling vessel. Hauer has also established an AIDS awareness foundation called the Rutger Hauer Starfish Foundation. He married his second wife, Ineke, in 1985 (they had been together since 1968); and he has one child, actress Aysha Hauer, who was born in 1966 and who made him a grandfather in 1988. In April 2007, he published his autobiography All Those Moments: Stories of Heroes, Villains, Replicants, and Blade Runners (co-written with Patrick Quinlan) where he discussed many of his movie roles. Proceeds of the book go to Hauer's Starfish Foundation.
Known For

Blade Runner
1982

Knockin' on Heaven's Door
1997

Sin City
2005

Batman Begins
2005

Ladyhawke
1985

Soldier of Orange
1977

Hostile Waters
1997

Wedlock
1991

Buffy the Vampire Slayer
1992

The Hunt for Eagle One: Crash Point
2006

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind
2002

Turkish Delight
1973

Happiness Runs
2010

Fatherland
1994

Scorcher
2002

The Blood of Heroes
1989

Nighthawks
1981

Isip the Warrior
—

Wanted: Dead or Alive
1987

The Wilby Conspiracy
1975

Fashion Forward: Wardrobe and Styling
2007

Tonight at Noon
—

Escape from Sobibor
1987

The Osterman Weekend
1983

Flesh + Blood
1985

The Hitcher
1986

Split Second
1992

Goal II: Living the Dream
2007

Spetters
1980

The Poseidon Adventure
2005

New World Disorder
1999

Katie Tippel
1975

Tactical Assault
1998

Blind Side
1993

Wilder
2000

Dead Tone
2007

The 5th Execution
2011

Precious Find
1996

Eureka
1983

On a Moonlit Night
1989

Barbarossa
2009

Deathline
1997

Portable Life
2011

Omega Doom
1996

Cold Blood
1975

Crossworlds
1996

Surviving the Game
1994

Heilige Jeanne
1978

Hobo with a Shotgun
2011

The Rite
2011

Moving McAllister
2007

Past Midnight
1992

Bride Flight
2008

Nostradamus
1994

The Hunt for Eagle One
2006

Minotaur
2006

Blind Fury
1989

Pastorale 1943
1978

Black Butterflies
2011

Bloodhounds of Broadway
1989

Flying Virus
2001

The Legend of the Holy Drinker
1988

Chanel Solitaire
1981

The Call of the Wild: Dog of the Yukon
1997

Dangerous Days: Making Blade Runner
2007

The Mill and the Cross
2011

The Heineken Kidnapping
2011

Tempesta
2004

Arctic Blue
1993

Bleeders
1997

Fatal Error
1979

A Breed Apart
1984

The Cardboard Village
2011

Cyrano de Bergerac
1975

Lying in Wait
2001

Magic Flute Diaries
2008

The Reverend
2011

Beyond Justice
1992

Life's a Beach
2010

The Future
2013

Dracula 3D
2012

Voyage
1993

Agent Ranjid Saves the World
2012

Partners in Crime
2000

Mysteries
1978

More Blood, More Heart: The Making of Hobo with a Shotgun
2011

Real Playing Game
2013

Starting Over
2007

Woman Between Wolf and Dog
1979

Never Enough
2004

The Letters
2014

Drawing Home
2017

The Beans of Egypt, Maine
1994

Blast
1997

Eating Pattern
1997

Paul Verhoeven: From Holland to Hollywood
1996

The Revenge of the Dead Indians
1993

Amelia Earhart: The Final Flight
1994

The Prince of Motor City
2008

Turbulence 3: Heavy Metal
2001

2047: Sights of Death
2014

Warrior Angels
2002

Mirror Wars: Reflection One
2005

On the Edge of 'Blade Runner'
2000

Spoon
2011

The Scorpion King 4: Quest for Power
2015

Cancer Rising
1975

Admiral
2015

Rond Floris
1969

Requiem 2019
2011

Blond, Blue Eyes
2006

Starfish Tango
—

Es begann bei Tiffany
1979

The Worlds of Philip K. Dick
2016

3
2009

The Ruby Ring
1997

Unity
2015

Behind the White Glasses
2015

Dazzle
2009

Francesco
2014

Wax - We Are The X
2016

Mr. Stitch
1995

Genderness
2016

Gangsterdam
2017

Beyond Valkyrie: Dawn of the 4th Reich
2016

Bone Daddy
1998

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets
2017

Iron Mask
2019

Dandelions
1974

Corbin Nash
2018

Clones
2015

Mentor
2006

Dracula III: Legacy
2005

Max Havelaar: or, The Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company
1976

Naked and Lustful
1976

Blood of the Innocent
1994

The Broken Key
2017

Samson
2018

The Sonata
2018

24 Hours to Live
2017

Mariette in Ecstasy
1996

The Bankers Of God: The Calvi Affair
2002

The Sisters Brothers
2018

Fifty Shades of Erotica
2015

Simon Magus
1999

The Hitcher: How Do These Movies Get Made?
2003

The Room
2001

Break
2020

The Edge
1989

Alpha to Omega: Exposing 'The Osterman Weekend'
2004

Albert Speer und der Traum von Hollywood
2021

The Best of Max Headroom
1987

Michelangelo: The Heart and the Stone
2012

All for One
2011

The Last Words of Dutch Schultz
2001

Moonage Daydream
2022

The Rhapsody
2008

Floris
1969

Lexx
1997

Alias
2001

Smallville
2001

V Graham Norton
2002

De Wereld Draait Door
2005

Zomer Draait Door, De
2007

Merlin
1998

True Blood
2008

Metal Hurlant Chronicles
2012

Galavant
2015

Floris von Rosemund
1975

Duel In De Diepte
1979

Flight of the Storks
2013

Channel Zero
2016

The 10th Kingdom
2000

Salem's Lot
2004

Mata Hari
2017

Porters
2017

The Real History of Science Fiction
2014

For Queen and Country
1979

The Max Headroom Show
1985

Francesco
2014

Omnibus
1967

The Law of the Desert
1991

Inside the Third Reich
1982

The Last Kingdom
2015