Terence Stamp, who has died at the age of 87, left behind a bold and multifaceted career that spanned experimental cinema to Hollywood’s biggest productions. Unforgettable in his roles – whether as a transgender woman in Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, an intergalactic villain in Superman or a mysterious seducer in Teorema – he captivated audiences with his magnetic presence, regardless of genre.

From “Billy Budd” to Cannes
His breakthrough came in 1962 with Peter Ustinov’s film Billy Budd, in which he played a sailor sentenced to death for murder – a role that earned him an Oscar nomination and a Golden Globe Award. Three years later, he also won “Best Actor” at Cannes for The Collector, a dark love story based on the novel by John Fowles.

Born in East London on July 22, 1938, Stamp grew up in poverty, in a family of seven, cramped together in a tenement house without a bathroom. In later years, he recalled his hungry childhood and the difficulties he faced at school because of his working-class accent.

The Italian Connection
Inspired by Gary Cooper and James Dean, he left home at 17 to study acting. His meeting with Federico Fellini in 1967 proved fateful – the director chose him for Spirits of the Dead. A year later, Pier Paolo Pasolini entrusted him with the role of a mysterious seducer in Teorema.

But after a series of important roles, his fame began to fade and he fell into oblivion for nearly ten years. In search of a new meaning, he embarked on a journey around the world and settled in India. There, in an ashram, in 1977, he received a call with an offer to play General Zod in Superman – a role that brought his career back to the big stage.

Between villains and cult images
From then on, Stamp became a favorite choice of Hollywood directors for roles of British villains. In the mid-90s, however, he showed a completely different face as Bernadette in Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, winning new fans. A little later, he returned to harsh male characters in Steven Soderbergh’s The Limey – a film that used footage from his early breakthrough Poor Cow to emphasize his glamour from “swinging” London.

Among his latest appearances is Last Night in Soho (2021) – a supernatural thriller in which ghosts from 1960s London haunt a young girl. With this film, Stamp symbolically closed the circle of his brilliant career, which began precisely with the image of an iconic handsome man of that decade. | BGNES, AFP