Superman Icon Terence Stamp Dies At 87
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British actor Terence Stamp, a leading man of 1960s cinema before reinventing himself in a series of striking roles, including as Superman villain General Zod, has died aged 87, UK media cited his family announcing on Sunday.<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cHe 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,\u201d the media quoted the family as saying.<\/p>\n Stamp appeared on screen in the 1960s as a leading man, often playing troubled characters. At one point, he seemed to specialise in playing brooding villains<\/p>\n Later still, he broke out of that typecasting to play a partying transgender woman in \u201cThe Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert\u201d.<\/p>\n From Pier Paolo Pasolini\u2019s \u201cTheorem\u201d to a villain\u2019s role in one of the \u201cStar Wars\u201d films, the handsome leading man captivated audiences in both arthouse films and Hollywood blockbusters.<\/p>\n He lent his magnetic presence to more than 60 films during a career that spanned a range of genres.<\/p>\n The London actor from a working-class background, born on July 22, 1938, had his first breakthrough in Peter Ustinov\u2019s \u201cBilly Budd\u201d.<\/p>\n His performance as a dashing young sailor hanged for killing one of his crewmates earned him an Oscar nomination and a Golden Globe for Best New Actor.<\/p>\n Carving out a niche for his alluring depictions of broody villains, he won Best Actor at Cannes in 1965 for \u201cThe Collector\u201d, a twisted love story adapted by William Wyler from John Fowles\u2019s bestselling novel.<\/p>\n His 1967 encounter with Federico Fellini was transformative. The Italian director was searching for the \u201cmost decadent English actor\u201d for his segment in an adaptation of \u201cSpirits of the Dead\u201d, a collection of Edgar Allen Poe stories.<\/p>\n Fellini cast him as \u201cToby Dammit\u201d, a drunken actor seduced by the devil in the guise of a little girl.<\/p>\n Another Italian great, Pasolini, who cast him in the cult classic \u201cTheorem\u201d, saw him as a \u201cboy of divine nature\u201d. In the 1969 film, Stamp played an enigmatic visitor who seduced an entire bourgeois Milanese family.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n He also had a relationship with Jean Shrimpton, a model and beauty of the sixties, before she left him towards the end of the decade.<\/p>\n \u201cI was so closely identified with the 1960s that when that era ended, I was finished with it,\u201d he once told French daily Liberation.<\/p>\n But the dry spell did not last long. Stamp revived his career for some of his most popular roles, including in the 1980s \u201cSuperman II\u201d, as Superman\u2019s arch-nemesis General Zod.<\/p>\n His famous line from that film, \u201cKneel before Zod!\u201d, was spreading online in social media tributes after the news broke of his death.<\/p>\n Other roles followed, including that of Bernadette, a transgender woman in \u201cPriscilla, Queen of the Desert\u201d (1994), in which Stamp continued his exploration of human ambiguity, this time in fishnet stockings.<\/p>\n He continued to pursue a wide-ranging career, jumping between big-budget productions such as a villain\u2019s role in \u201cThe Phantom Menace\u201d, one of the Star Wars films, to independent films like Stephen Frears\u2019s \u201cThe Hit\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\nHeroes And Villains\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n
\n\u2018Kneel Before Zod!\u2019\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n