Hollywood actor Rutger Hauer, who became a global cult icon for his role as the scary yet thought-provoking humanoid android in the 1982 sci-fi classic "Blade Runner", has died at the age of 75.
Hauer's non-profit HIV/AIDS charity, the Rutger Hauer Starfish Association, said on its website it was announcing "with infinite sadness that after a very short illness, on Friday, July 19, 2019, Rutger passed away peacefully at his Dutch home".
Dutch media said Hauer was buried at a private ceremony.
Set in a dystopian Los Angeles of 2019 and directed by Ridley Scott, Bladerunner catapulted the tall, blonde Dutch actor with piercing blue eyes to international stardom.
His last haunting monologue in the movie as the genetically engineered replicant Roy Batty could perhaps stand as his own obituary: "I've seen things you people wouldn't believe... all those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die."
"Half of Roy is me," said Hauer, who went on to play a number of memorable menacing bad guys who sent shivers down audiences' spines.
On the 30th anniversary of the film's release in 2012, Hauer told reporters in Milan that it "was completely delicious to work on. I can't even fathom how it feels to be alive and an icon basically because of this movie". Starring Harrison Ford as a special police agent sent to hunt down renegade replicants who have returned to Earth from human colonies in space, "Blade Runner" initially bombed at the box-office. But it went on to become a cult movie, attracting a devoted fan-base.
Born on January 23, 1944 in Breukelen just outside Amsterdam to Dutch parents who were both actors and ran an acting school, the young Hauer showed an early rebellious and wild streak. At 15 he ran away to sea, travelling the world on a Dutch Merchant Navy freighter picking up English, German, French and Italian on the way. After returning to the Netherlands, he took up acting properly joining a touring company bringing theatre to Dutch villages. In 1969 he got his first real break when he was cast in the lead role of a swashbuckling historical Dutch television series called "Floris" directed by the then little known Paul Verhoeven.