William Hurt, the acclaimed actor known for his award-winning work in films like Kiss of the Spider Woman and Broadcast News, died on Sunday. His son Will released a statement confirming that Hurt died “peacefully, among family, of natural causes.” He was 71.
Hurt was a classically trained actor, appearing in stage productions in New York City throughout the 1970s before making his film debut in Ken Russell’s 1980 science-fiction thriller Altered States. Hurt received a Golden Globe nomination for that debut performance, and the next year co-starred alongside Kathleen Turner in the neo-noir classic Body Heat. In the mid-1980s, Hurt received three consecutive Academy Award nominations for his work in Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985), Children of a Lesser God (1986), and Broadcast News (1987). Hurt won the Oscar for Kiss of the Spider Woman, and received the Best Male Performance Prize at Cannes Film Festival that same year. The actor received his fourth and final Oscar nomination for David Cronenberg’s 2005 crime thriller A History of Violence. In recent years, Hurt starred as General Thaddeus Ross in several Marvel films including Avengers: Endgame and Black Widow. He is survived by his four children.