In the 60s, a twenty-something Terence Stamp with a chiseled jaw, blue eyes, athletic and elegant demeanor shook Britain, European cinema, the tabloids, and half the world. Until one day, without warning, he disappeared only to resurface, transformed into a historic villain a decade later, as General Zod facing Superman in the superhero's second set of films.
Terence Stamp has passed away at 87 years old this Sunday, as reported by his family, but the legacy of a career that began in 60s London as part of the Swinging London that swept through the English capital during that decade remains. His name is associated with Michael Caine, David Hemmings, Peter O'Toole, Richard Harris... He was the heartthrob of that group and had also cultivated that spiritual and introspective image to which he clung in the lowest moments of his career.
It was during that decade that he worked with Pier Paolo Pasolini in Theorem (1968), with Federico Fellini in the short film Toby Dammit, with Ken Loach in Poor Cow (1967), and with William Wyler in The Collector (1965). His image graced the covers of magazines worldwide. That British lad became the object of desire for half the world, and his relationship with model Jean Shrimpton became the favorite topic of the British tabloids. No other couple exuded more glamour, and when the relationship ended, it became a national tragedy for Britain and for the actor himself, who admitted that it opened an emotional rift in his life.
Neither his relationship with Julie Christie - with whom he shared the spotlight in Far from the Madding Crowd, another classic - also hounded by the tabloids, nor the rumors linking him to actress Brigitte Bardot could overshadow his union with the top model. As the 60s came to an end, the figure of Terence Stamp faded into near obscurity. "When the 60s ended, I ended with them," the actor himself acknowledged in an interview with The Guardian in 2015.
Roles were scarce, and the Brit embarked on a spiritual journey that took him to India. In Poona, he secluded himself in a spiritual center, grew his hair, wore orange robes, and devoted himself to yoga, meditation, and tantric teachings. Not until 1975 did he appear on screen in The Divine Nymph. In 1977, as recounted on his website, while staying at the Blue Diamond Hotel in India, he received a telegram from his agent offering him the role of General Zod in Superman.
Richard Donner had decided to bring him back to play the villain accused of treason for attempting to take over the planet Krypton, opposite Christopher Reeve's Superman in 1978. In a cast filled with stars that Stamp shared with Marlon Brando, Christopher Reeve, and Gene Hackman - also deceased this past February - and with a script by Mario Puzo. The same role awaited him four years later in the second installment of the superhero classic, which had been filmed simultaneously with the previous one.
His name was also considered in the 70s, before his return in Superman, to take on the role of James Bond as the successor to Sean Connery. The image of the elegant British heartthrob that had accompanied him in the 60s still prevailed, but the role of 007 would ultimately go to Roger Moore. Stamp, however, had already revived a career that in the 80s also included titles like Wall Street, Young Guns, The Sicilian, and Link.
In the 90s, far from his previous heartthrob or villain characters, Terence Stamp took on one of the most unexpected roles in his career. That transgender woman, Bernadette, who accompanies two drag queen friends through the Australian desert in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994). "It was a challenge I couldn't resist because otherwise, my life would have been a lie," the Brit stated in a conversation with the British Film Institute, also admitting that he thought it was a joke when the role was offered to him.
Stamp didn't want to do the film, as he has confessed on multiple occasions, but it was his agent who eventually convinced him to do it as a way to break away from the roles that had defined his career. He did it despite his reservations about Australia, where the paparazzi had pursued him in the 60s, and his Bernadette became a reference point for the LGBTQ+ community.
It was at the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st when the figure of the British actor became a fetish to recover one of the great faces of 60s cinema. Steven Soderbergh turned him into a vengeful gangster in The Limey (1999). In the series Smallville, based on Clark Kent's earlier life, he voiced the ethereal version of Jor-El in a clear nod to the Superman films of the 70s. And in 2014 and 2015, Tim Burton, a self-proclaimed fan of 60s British cinema, gave him roles in Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children and Big Eyes.
This Sunday, he passed away at 87 years old, and his family stated in a public statement that Terence Stamp leaves behind "an extraordinary body of work as an actor and writer that will continue to inspire people." And so it is.