“It is with great sadness that the Hurt family mourns the passing of William Hurt, beloved father and Oscar-winning actor,” his son Will said in a statement to Deadline. “He died peacefully, surrounded by family.”
Hurt was one of the most celebrated actors of the 1980s. He won an Oscar in the Best Actor category for his portrayal of a gay man who shares a cell in Brazil with a political prisoner in the 1985 film Kiss of the Spider Woman. He was also nominated for his roles in Broadcast News ( 1987), a news industry satire, and in Children of a Lesser God (1986), a romantic drama set in a school for the deaf.