(^42) Obituaries
The Dutch actor Rutger
Hauer, who has died aged
75, will be remembered in
particular for his role as
the replicant Roy Batty in Ridley Scott’s 1982
cult hitBlade Runner.Atonce violent and
philosophical, Batty rails against his artificially
shortened lifespan–and in the moments before
he dies, utters some of cinema’s most cherished
lines. “I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t
believe,” he tells Harrison Ford’s Rick Deckard
after saving his life, though Deckard has been
sent to terminate him. “Attack ships on fire off
the shoulder of Orion.Iwatched C-beams
glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate.
All those moments will be lost in time, like
tears in rain. Time to die.”
Hauer, who had written the final lines of the
monologue himself, citedBlade Runneras the
film of which he was most proud–and was
dismayed that, in the UK at least, he was
perhaps better known for frontingahugely
successful series of TV ads for Guinness in the 1980s and 1990s.
Weird and wryly portentous, these cleverly exploited his droll,
enigmatic persona, yet he’d also been hired because of his
resemblance to the beer. “The star’s blonde hair wasasymbol
of the foamy head onapint,” noted Campaign magazine. Hauer
fronted 20 of the ads, though he hated the beer: he said he’d
rather drink milk, and that he spat it out after every take.
Born in 1944, Rutger Hauer was the son of two actors who ran
adrama school in Amsterdam. His parents were highly involved
in their own careers, and he was largely brought up by nannies.
With no interest in following in their footsteps, he ran away to
sea aged 15, and spentayear travelling the world onamerchant
navy freighter. He’d been attracted, he said later, by the “freaks
and criminals” who make up the crew of such ships, but tired of
it afterayear. “I think it’s rather stupid to beagrown-up male
going from harbour to harbour, spending your time with
hookers in bars,” he said. “I thought there
might be more interesting things than that.”
Afteraperiod working as an electrician, he
joined the army–only to refuse weapons
training and be invalided out on the grounds
of psychological unfitness. Finally, he enrolled
at drama school, and spent five years working
with an avant-garde theatre troupe before being
cast inaseries of Dutch films, many of them
directed by Paul Verhoeven. They included the
sexually explicitTurkish Delight,which was
nominated for an Oscar in 1973, andSoldier
of Orange(1977). Hauer knew that he risked
overexposure if he stayed working in the small
Dutch film industry, so in 1981 he went to
Hollywood to star inNighthawks,asavicious
psychopath being pursued by Sylvester Stallone.
It was the start of the Reagan era, said The
Times, when the US “was seeking to recover its
self-confidence after the Vietnam War and the
Watergate scandal”, and Hauer was able to
makealiving playing European villains doing
battle with all-American heroes. “If you’reaforeigner, that’s how
you start,” he said. It was also, though, how he mainly continued.
In 1986’sThe Hitcher,hewas so terrifying that he was credited
with destroying the option of free travel on American roads.
Off screen, Hauer was far from villainous:agun-hating
environmentalist, he supported Greenpeace and set up an Aids
awareness charity. His first marriage, which producedadaughter,
ended in divorce, but he keptatattoo of his ex on his shoulder,
“as away of saying, ‘You’re under my skin.’” He is survived by
his second wife, Ineke ten Cate, an artist, whom he’d married in
- They kept homes in the Netherlands and LA, and when
their work allowed, took trips together in an ancient caravan. His
adventurous spirit undimmed by success and wealth, he rode a
motorbike and did many of his own stunts. “That young boy who
sailed the seas is still here with me,” he said four months before he
died. “And he’s saying this about my life: ‘That was awesome.’”
Rutger Hauer
1944-2019Li Peng, who has died aged 90,
was internationally reviled for
his role in the Tiananmen
Square massacre. As China’s
premier, it was he who ordered the student
protesters to go back to their campuses in May
1989; he who imposed martial law when they
refused; and he who, two weeks later, signed the
order for the People’s Liberation Army to move
in. Pictures of the tanks lining up against the
activists on4June were beamed across the
world, and Li became “the leader most associated
with the crackdown”, in which hundreds, if not
thousands died, said The Guardian. He was
dubbed the “Butcher of Beijing”, but it later
became apparent that he was no more than a
“willing executioner”: though he’d certainly
supported bringing in troops, seeing the peaceful
protests as an existential threat to the Communist Party, the
orders were coming from powerful figures behind the scenes, and
in particular the reformist paramount leader Deng Xiaoping.A“true child of the Communist Party”, Li was born in Sichuan
province in 1928, said The Times. His father was an early martyr
to the communist cause, shot dead by the Kuomintang Army
when he was three. Li was one of several “revolutionary
orphans” to be adopted by Zhou Enlai, who would become oneof the great communist heroes and China’s
premier. Educated at Mao Zedong’s wartime
HQ, Li was sent to study engineering in the
Soviet Union in 1948, before returning to start
acareer in the power sector.Ahard-working
technocrat, he keptalow enough profileto
survive both the Great Leap Forward, in the late
1950s, and the decade-long Cultural Revolution.
He finally entered the government in 1979, just
as the party was being split between supporters of
market reforms, led by Deng, and hardliners who
opposed them. Li was in the latter camp, and on
becoming premier in 1988, promised only the
Maoist virtues of “plain living and hard work”.Stiff, illiberal and given to speaking in dull party
platitudes, Li was unpopular even before
Tiananmen and the witch-hunt of activists that
followed it, which he also ordered. He then made more enemies,
among environmentalists and others, by pushing through the vast
Three Gorges Dam project for which 1.2 million people had to
be displaced. He resigned as premier in 1989. Two of his children
are now powerful figures in China’s energy sector, and have been
accused of using their positions to accrue great wealth. In his
official obituaries in China, where the events of 1989 have long
been taboo, he was praised for taking decisive measures to pacify
“counter-revolutionary riots”.Li Peng
1928-2019Stylish Dutch actor who starred in Blade RunnerHauer: an enigmatic presenceLi: “revolutionary orphan”Chinese leader known abroad as the “Butcher of Beijing”THE WEEK3August 2019