William Hurt has left the Stage

by Pa Rock

Film Fan

One of my favorite actors passed away this past weekend, in one of my favorite cities.

I had been thinking of William Hurt just a few days before his death when I came across the movie, "Gorky Park," on television.  The 1983 movie wasn't a major entry in Hurt's legacy of over a hundred films, but it was a good production and one that came when as his career was peaking - sandwiched between "The Big Chill" and his Oscar-Winning performance in "Kiss of the Spider Woman." 

"Gorky Park" was based on a novel of the same name by Martin Cruz Smith.  The Russian detective who served as the protagonist for the story was Arkady Renko, a middle-aged public servant who tried to  navigate the Soviet bureaucracy in solving crimes without drawing undo attention from the KGB.  Renko was a complicated individual who operated in an environment that was closed and secretive.  

I had read the novel, "Gorky Park," many years ago, and was surprised that Hollywood chose to tackle the material for a movie.   It has a complex plot navigated by a detective who was as alien and strange to American audiences as the Russian culture and Soviet bureaucracy in which he had to operate.  Giving life to Arkady Renko and turning "Gorky Park" into an enjoyable movie was undoubtedly a challenge, but William Hurt was the right person to pull it off.

William Hurt, one of the most accomplished actors of his generation, passed way in Portland, Oregon, yesterday.   He died of natural causes at the age of seventy-one.