Rutger Hauer, genre actor and Blade Runner icon, has died at 75

Enlarge / Hauer on the set of Blade Runner. (credit: Warner Bros)

Dutch actor Rutger Hauer, an icon of genre fiction perhaps best known to general audiences for his portrayal of renegade android Roy Batty in Ridley Scott's 1982 cult classic Blade Runner, died on Friday.

As reported today in Variety, Hauer's agent Steve Kanis confirmed the actor's death, noting that a funeral had already been held. Hauer died at the age of 75 at his home in Beetsterzwaag in the Netherlands after struggling with an unnamed illness.

Hauer starred as a leading man in Dutch TV series and films before starring alongside Sylvester Stallone in 1981's Nighthawks. He soon became a staple of '80s genre films, appearing in Blade Runner, Ladyhawke, and The Hitcher, among others.

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