The family of British actor Terence Stamp has communicated his death this Sunday. The interpreter, who jumped to fame for his role as the villain of Superman, He was 87 years old. “Leave an extraordinary work as an actor and writer who will continue to inspire people,” says the written writing, without clarifying the causes of his death.
Born in the East End Londonense in 1938, he lived as a child the bombings of the city during World War II. He studied interpretation thanks to a scholarship on Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art and was a flat companion of another great British actor, Michael Caine, and Julie Christie’s partner. Was part of the Swinging London of the sixties.
In 1962 he debuted in the cinema as the protagonist of the adaptation of Herman Melville’s novel Billy Budddirected by Peter Ustinov, a role that earned a nomination for the Oscars. In 1965 he starred The collector by William Wyler, a film with which he triumphed in Cannes. It was going to be James Bond after Sean Connery, but that plan did not curb and moved to Italy. There he worked with Fellini and Pasolini, but it was not until his role in Superman In 1978 when he reached star status. Stamp played the General Zod supervillano in the first films of the saga with Christopher Reeve. He counted years later than at the time he received the offer was in an Ashram in India, considering devoting himself to the tantric yoga. That call from his agent took him out of that and made him the unforgettable evil Zod.
In the eighties he participated, among other films, in Wall Streetand in the nineties he rolled with the Spanish Pilar Miró Beltsalso acted in the great success Priscilla, desert queen. In the last decade, he participated in the production of Tim Burton Big eyes (2014) and in 2021 in Last night at the Soho, Among other films.
In addition to his interpreter career, Stamp has written several memoirs. He married for the first time in 2002 with Elizabeth Rourke, a pharmacist 35 years younger than him, who divorced six years later. Stamp always declared that his great love was the model Jean Shrimpton with whom he formed a couple in the sixties.