Terence Stamp, a British actor best known for his role as General Zod in Superman and Superman II, has died at the age of 87, his family confirmed to Reuters August 17.
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Hollywood is mourning the loss of a beloved actor.
Terence Stamp—who was best known for his roles in 1978’s Superman as well as its 1980 sequel Superman II—died on August 17, his family confirmed to Reuters. He was 87.
“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,” his family said in a statement to the outlet. “We ask for privacy at this sad time.”
Born as the son of a tugboat stoker in London’s East End, Stamp didn’t discover his love for acting until late into his teenage years.
“It wasn’t until we got our first TV—I would’ve been about 17 I think, and I was already at work—that I started saying things like, ‘Oh, I could do that,’” he told BFI in 2013. “My dad just turned me off it. He was probably trying to save me a lot of aggro. He genuinely believed that people like us didn’t do things like that.”
But after winning a scholarship to study at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art, it wasn’t long before he made his film debut in 1962’s Billy Bud and later received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor as well as a Golden Globe for Most Promising Male Newcomer.
And luckily, he had friends like Michael Caine and Peter O’Toole to help show him the ropes.
“When I started the movie, a kind of amazing thing happened because I just discovered that—it was like I knew it,” the actor explained to NPR in 2021. “It was as though it was absolutely second nature to me. Everything I saw that was new, I understood almost instantaneously.”
(Photo by Tom Wargacki/WireImage)
While Stamp made a name for himself as a villain in films like 1965’s The Collector and 1967’s Far From the Madding Crowd alongside then-girlfriend Julie Christie, he broke expectations in 1994 when he earned nominations for Best Actor at the Golden Globes as well as the BAFTAs for his standout performance as a trans woman in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.
”Cross-dressing has been around at least since Shakespeare,” he told People at the time. ”It would be nice if greater androgyny were the next big social development. It would make relationships easier.”
”I’m sure Hollywood will say, ‘We knew he was a great villain,’” he quipped, “’Now we know he’s got great legs.’”
In more recent years, Stamp also starred in 1991’s Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, 2008’s Get Smart, 2019’s Murder Mystery alongside Adam Sandler and 2021’s Last Night in Soho.
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