14 Comments
Mar 14, 2022Liked by Ty Burr

Ty, Loved this. I am sad he’s gone. Saw him once in Paris on the Ile St Louis. He was walking around with what I guess was his entourage.

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William Hurt RIP. His characters always seemed to project a quirkyness, yet remained empathetic even his villains. In the past few years, in obvious decline, he willingly played similarly dying characters. I sense this may have amused him somehow. Sad that his death was slow and painful, nothing like what he shared with Turner, “he said he wanted to be sucked up into a jet engine”, but he soldiered on to his end.

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Ty — when I heard the news, like you, I ‘saw’ his beside-all-rest character in The Big Chill. You captured him in a nutshell with “…as if he were telling you only half of what he was thinking.” And after reading the wonderfully kooky Kathleen Turner’s ‘sucked up into a jet engine’ comment I gotta go back and watch Body Heat again.

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Sad indeed. He was one of those actors i always enjoyed seeing, even in the lesser of the films he was in. I especially liked Body Heat, Broadcast news and the KIss of the Spiderwoman. And Alilce....I actually saw Hurly Burly on Broadway late 70's or early 80's....I was a student (in Boston) but my father (who lived in the Midwest) was in New York for a few days and invited me. I liked seeing such great actors (there were several of them) but I didn't much care for the script.

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I left out Smoke, the movie with script (and I think directed) by Paul Auster (currently my favorite author). Hurt was perfect for a Paul Auster story.

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I never thought he was a very good actor. I thought he constantly played himself. I'm sorry he's gone and didn't know he was battling prostate cancer, but as an actor ... meh.

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I was waiting for this one, knew you were on vacation when it happened. Would love if some time you wrote about his co-star in Kiss of the Spider Woman, Raul Julia. He is one of my favorites, taken way too soon, but a very charming Puerto Rican actor. Most people here don't know how really charming Puerto Rican people are. He embodied all of it, charming and talented.

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Hi Ty (not that I know you, but I now work with Sean at DAM...). I really appreciated your thoughtful post on William Hurt, whom I knew as Billy Hurt in high school. I performed with him in "Our Town," back when I was a sophomore at a nearby girl's school, and he was a junior, and his seriousness and focus on his performance filled me with awe and admiration, even back then. Your terming him "a seeker" is spot-on. We remained good friends, in college and beyond, but it always has bothered me that I never got back in touch with him after he seemingly suddenly, though not surprisingly, became famous. He always was vulnerable, and a truly tender-hearted soul, and I think often greatly misunderstood. But his work holds. The scene in "The Big Chill" of him interviewing himself may have been the closest he came to revealing himself on film. Thank you very much for your post.

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No one yet has mentioned what I think is the best film Hurt starred in (by a mile); of course it features one of his best performances. Admittedly, it has been seen by very few ... but then again, it's fairly (in)famous. And that is Win Wenders' _Until the End of the World_, but only the full 4 hr 47 min version (which streams on Criterion). I'm guessing Ty has it his queue. :)

Here's a sci-fi film written in the late 1980's set in "1999" that plays now like a mildly satiric alternate present written last year, with correctly sized laptops apparently hooked up to ubiquitous wi-fi, built-in GPS navigation in cars, and handheld device addiction. You have an epic, endlessly entertaining ultimate road trip with every trope subverted, and when the destination is finally reached, a deep thematic dive. The best original song soundtrack in the history of cinema is just a bonus. I've only seen it once but in my mind it's already a strong contender as a top 10 science fiction film of all time. (Granted, it's cheating via sheer quantity.)

And based on what I've now read about Hurt (mostly right here) ... given what the film is trying to achieve, and how it goes about it, you'd be hard-pressed to find a better match between film and star.

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Darn it! My doppelganger has died! For years, people would tap my shoulder and ask, "Are you William Hurt?" Since I was taught not to lie, I always said "No, but I'd like to be..." The time I really wanted to deceive the questioner was when she happened to be an attractive desk clerk at a hotel during my years of living on the road....but my conscience won out as it should have.

The movies just don't make sex scenes like Hurt and Kathleen Turner's any more that's for sure!

Finally, your prompt to watch "The Doctor..." might have answered a burning question for me, that being how "You Can't Always Get What You Want" became my favorite rock song ever! The Boys' choir at the end gets me singing out loud every time!

Thanks, Ty! I hope your solo career is going well!

All Best,

Paul (T. Levinson)

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