![\"Terence](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/4693.jpg\")
Terence Stamp’s most memorable roles \u2013 video <\/p>\nTerence Stamp, one of the stellar faces of British 60s cinema, who had a second act from the late 1970s as a character actor in the likes of Superman: The Movie, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and The Limey, has died aged 87.<\/p>\n
His family said in a statement that he died on Sunday morning. \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 they said. \u201cWe ask for privacy at this sad time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Terence Stamp’s most memorable roles \u2013 video <\/p>\n
Stephen Frears, who directed Stamp in the 1984 thriller The Hit said: \u201cHe was a fine man and a fine actor. It was an honour to have directed him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stamp became one of British cinema\u2019s glamour figures in its most fashionable decade, scoring early high-profile roles in Billy Budd and The Collector for the directors Peter Ustinov and William Wyler respectively.<\/p>\n
His relationship with the model Jean Shrimpton in the mid-60s ensured both were key faces of the decade. Stamp became one of its most photographed people and a significant part of the new wave of working-class actors and musicians that fuelled Britain\u2019s pre-eminent position in the entertainment industry.<\/p>\n
Terence Stamp in The Limey. Photograph: United Archives GmbH\/Alamy<\/p>\n
Born in Stepney in east London, Stamp grew up the son of tugboat sailor in the slightly less tough area of Plaistow, and won a scholarship to drama school. His brother Chris also became a high-profile figure as manager of music acts including The Who and Jimi Hendrix.<\/p>\n
After meeting during a tour of The Long and the Short and the Tall, Stamp shared a flat with his fellow up-and-coming actor Michael Caine, whom Stamp later described as his guru.<\/p>\n
His first major screen role was in 1962 in Billy Budd, for which he received an Oscar nomination for best supporting actor. This brought him to the attention of Hollywood and he was given the lead role in Wyler\u2019s 1965 adaptation of John Fowles\u2019s thriller novel The Collector.<\/p>\n
Terence Stamp and model Jean \u2018The Shrimp\u2019 Shrimpton, London, 1964. The couple were regarded as the \u2018faces of the 60s\u2019 by Vogue magazine. Photograph: Terry O\u2019Neill\/Iconic Images<\/p>\n
Stamp\u2019s subsequent acting career in the 1960s was erratic. He lost out to Sean Connery for James Bond and was replaced in the lead role of Michelangelo Antonioni\u2019s Blow-Up by David Hemmings. However, he starred opposite Antonioni\u2019s favoured star Monica Vitti in Modesty Blaise, directed by Joseph Losey, appeared in Ken Loach\u2019s hard-hitting debut Poor Cow, and starred opposite his former girlfriend Julie Christie in Far from the Madding Crowd, adapted from Thomas Hardy\u2019s novel.<\/p>\n
Guy Pearce, Terence Stamp and Hugo Weaving in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, 1994. Photograph: AJ Pics\/Alamy<\/p>\n
In 1968, Stamp appeared in two films for Italian auteurs. Federico Fellini cast him in his section of the three-part omnibus film Spirits of the Dead adapted from Edgar Allan Poe, while Pier Paolo Pasolini gave him the lead role in his allegorical masterpiece Theorem. Stamp later said: \u201cPasolini told me: \u2018A stranger arrives, makes love to everybody, and leaves. This is your part.\u2019 I said: \u2018I can do that!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Take a front seat at the cinema with our weekly email filled with all the latest news and all the movie action that matters<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Stamp\u2019s profile declined sharply at the end of the decade and work dried up. \u201cIt was a mystery to me. I was in my prime. When the 1960s ended, I just ended with it,\u201d he said. \u201cI remember my agent telling me: \u2018They are all looking for a young Terence Stamp\u2019 \u2026 I couldn\u2019t believe it.\u201d<\/p>\n Stamp with Julie Christie in Far from the Madding Crowd. Photograph: Vic\/Appia\/Rex\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n He went to India and stayed on an ashram and was eventually recalled by the film industry with an offer to play the villainous General Zod in Superman: The Movie and Superman II, which were filmed back to back.<\/p>\n Stamp later said he had to come to terms with no longer being the lead actor. \u201cI had transmuted myself. I no longer saw myself as a leading man,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat had happened inside of me enabled me to take the role, and not feel embarrassed or depressed about playing the villain. I just decided I was a character actor now.\u201d<\/p>\n Stamp returned to British cinema in the 1980s, starring opposite John Hurt and Tim Roth in Frears\u2019 The Hit, and had a cameo as the devil in Neil Jordan\u2019s literary horror film The Company of Wolves. He subsequently alternated safe-bet Hollywood roles with more adventurous work. In 1994 he played the trans cabaret performer Bernadette Bassenger in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, for which he received Bafta and Golden Globe nominations, followed by a lead role in Steven Soderbergh\u2019s revenge thriller The Limey.<\/p>\n The subsequent decades saw more high-profile castings as interest grew in his earlier work, including roles in Star Wars Episode I \u2013 The Phantom Menace, Wanted and The Adjustment Bureau, while another juicy British cinema role came his way opposite Vanessa Redgrave in Song for Marion. More recently he appeared in Big Eyes and Miss Peregrine\u2019s Home for Peculiar Children for Tim Burton, and his most recently released film credit was Last Night in Soho, the retro-inspired horror thriller directed by Edgar Wright.<\/p>\n Despite a string of high-profile relationships, including with Christie and Shrimpton, Stamp married only once, in 2002, to Elizabeth O\u2019Rourke. They divorced in 2008.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Terence Stamp, one of the stellar faces of British 60s cinema, who had a second act from the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":75633,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[64,63,447,134],"class_list":{"0":"post-75632","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-celebrities","11":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75632"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75632\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}