OSCAR WINNING ACTOR WILLIAM HURT DEAD AT 71

By Chandrayee Roy Choudhury, Canada

William Hurt, whose laconic charisma and self-assured subtlety as an actor made him one of the 1980s foremost leading men in movies such as Broadcast News, Body Heat and The Big Chill, has died. He was 71.



Hurt's son, Will, said in a statement that Hurt died Sunday of natural causes. Hurt died peacefully, among family, his son said. The Hollywood Reporter said he died at his home in Portland. Deadline first reported Hurt's death. Hurt was previously diagnosed with prostate cancer that had spread to the bone in 2018.



In a long-running career, Hurt was nominated for an Academy Award three times, winning for 1985's Kiss of the Spider Woman. After his screen debut in 1980's Paddy Chayefsky-scripted Altered States as a psychopathologist studying schizophrenia and experimenting with sensory deprivation, Hurt quickly emerged as one of the foremost leading men in the 1980s.