Terence Stamp, the magnetic British actor whose career spanned six decades and ranged from early Oscar-nominated roles to unforgettable turns in cult classics and blockbusters, has died at 87. His family confirmed his passing on Sunday morning, though the location and cause of death were not disclosed.
Born on July 22, 1938, in London's East End, Stamp was the eldest of five children of a tugboat stoker and endured the Blitz during World War II. After leaving school, he worked in advertising before winning a scholarship to the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art, where his striking looks and raw talent quickly set him apart.
Stamp burst onto the international scene at just 24 in "Billy Budd" (1962), delivering a performance that earned him an Academy Award nomination and a Golden Globe for Most Promising Newcomer. Critics were captivated by his natural intensity, a quality he would bring to various roles. He followed that breakthrough with "The Collector" (1965), playing a disturbed kidnapper in a performance hailed at Cannes as Best Actor, and later embodied the sadistic Sergeant Troy in "Far From the Madding Crowd" (1967), opposite Julie Christie.
Offscreen, Stamp became a cultural figurehead of 1960s "Swinging London." He dated supermodel Jean Shrimpton, starred alongside then-partner Christie, and was immortalized by photographer David Bailey as one of the era's most glamorous icons. Yet his career soon took a detour: after unsuccessful projects and turning down the role in "Alfie" (later made famous by his roommate Michael Caine), he withdrew from the limelight. By the late 1960s, he was working in Italy with auteurs like Federico Fellini and Pier Paolo Pasolini, and later spent several years in India studying yoga.
Stamp's most recognizable role came in the late 1970s, when he was cast as General Zod, the megalomaniacal Kryptonian villain in Richard Donner's "Superman" (1978) and its sequel, "Superman II" (1980). His commanding presence and unforgettable delivery of "Kneel before Zod" cemented him as one of cinema's great supervillains.
Far from being typecast, Stamp continued to reinvent himself. In 1994, he played Bernadette, a transgender woman, in "The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert". The performance was praised for its nuance and dignity, and Stamp later said it gave him the chance to explore the feminine side of his nature. In 1999, he starred in Steven Soderbergh's "The Limey", a gritty neo-noir that earned him acclaim as a vengeful ex-con.
His later career included roles in "Wall Street" (1987), "Young Guns" (1988), "Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace" (1999), "Valkyrie" (2008), "The Adjustment Bureau" (2011), and "Unfinished Song" (2012). He even returned to Superman lore, this time as the voice of Jor-El in the television series "Smallville". His final screen role was in Edgar Wright's "Last Night in Soho" (2021).
Reflecting on his life in a 2017 interview, Stamp said, "The thing that has been constant is that from the very beginning I always seemed to be the opposite to everybody else."
His family, in a statement, remembered him as leaving 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.”