In recent years, he has worked more in television, including the FX series Damage and the British sci-fi drama Humans. He was also in the 2013 TV movie The Challenger Disaster which, in a 2015 interview, prompted The Guardian to ask him if he was interested in space travel.
“I am interested in all horizons and what is beyond them,” he said. “We know less about the ocean than about space. I love to swim, swim and fly.”
William McChord Hurt was born on March 20, 1950 in Washington, D.C. to career diplomat Alfred Hurt and Claire Isabelle (McGill) Hurt, who worked for Time Inc. When Bill was 6 years old, his parents separated and his mother married Henry Luce III, son of the founder of Time magazine.
Mr. Hurt attended Tufts University and later studied acting at the Juilliard School. By the latter half of the 1970s, he was gaining attention on New York stages, notably appearing in Lanford Wilson’s play The Fifth of July in Circle Rep in 1978. The Times singled him out.
“William Hurt may have now been discovered by Hollywood (Altered States, Eyewitness), but he has not lost that crazy intensity that makes it a pleasure to watch him in a movie theater,” Mr. Rich’s review began. “What makes this talented actor so special – and inevitably a star – is his ability to create his own reality on stage. While he can create a strong character when he wants to (as he did with Kenneth Talley in the original Fifth of July production), he’s willing to be charming without any help from a playwright.”
If his acting game caused rave reviews, then Mr. Hurt’s personal life was not easy. He had a relationship with Children of a Lesser God co-star Marley Matlin, which she later described as abusive. A long-term relationship with dancer Sandra Jennings was taken to court in 1989 when Ms. Jennings argued unsuccessfully that they were in fact married. His marriages to Mary Beth Hurt and Heidi Henderson ended in divorce.