CBE for 'outsider' actor John Hurt

John Hurt only turned to the world of stage and screen after deciding to pack in his art course.

The son of a clergyman switched career plans after meeting two “wild Australian girls” in London who persuaded him to apply to Rada drama school.

Hurt won a scholarship to the prestigious academy and would graduate from walk-on parts on the London stage to Hollywood stardom.

Hurt, who has been made a CBE, had just one short comment to make from the location in the US of his new film, The Skeleton Key.

He said: “What a wonderful surprise.”

Hurt became an overnight sensation and household name at the age of 35, playing the outrageous Quentin Crisp in the TV series The Naked Civil Servant.

He recently recalled: “At the time it was a huge gamble. Some people told me not to do it because after I had done it I would probably never work again.”

Before then he had performed with the Royal Shakespeare Company and made his film debut in 1962 with the Wild and the Willing, followed by the international classic A Man for All Seasons (1966).

Since then, Hurt’s film career has included landmark movies like Midnight Express (1978) and The Elephant Man (1980).

Hurt received an Oscar nominations for his part as the Elephant Man – for which he spent seven hours every day having make-up applied – and Alan Parker’s Midnight Express.

Hurt has specialised in playing the outsider – and was noticeably cast in this light in two more films in the Eighties, the adaptation of 1984 and Scandal, the story of disgraced government minister John Profumo, in which he played social gadfly Stephen Ward.

In the Nineties, Hurt handpicked roles in independent films, plays, and movies like Rob Roy and Even Cowgirls Get The Blues

Despite his success, Hurt, who was born John Vincent Hurt in Chesterfield, Derbyshire, never wanted the limelight, saying: “The star thing never appealed to me.”

He has said that he often felt isolated as a child – he was distrusted by other children because he was the son of a vicar – - while his mother was keen that he “shouldn’t mix with common people“.

He wanted to be an actor at the age of nine but was dissuaded by his parents who thought the work too insecure and encouraged him to study for an art teacher’s diploma.

Hurt, who developed a reputation as a hellraiser, admits he has done some “stinkers in the cinema” but says he doesn’t regret them.

He has over 60 films to his name – and more recent credits include Dogville - one of the many pieces he has narrated – the part of Mr Ollivander in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and Captain Corelli’s Mandolin.

Now 64, Hurt recently won acclaim with his return to the small screen with the BBC series the Alan Clark Diaries – when he played the former Tory minister.

But for many cinema-goers, he is the man from whom an alien burst out of his chest in the 1979 film of the same name.

Hurt has been married three times. His long term love, model Marie-Lise Volpeliere-Pierrot died in a riding accident in 1984. The couple were together for 16 years.