Rutger Hauer, the Dutch wunderkind of an actor whose steely intensity made his presence unforgettable in films like Blade Runner, Nighthawks, and other challenging projects, died on July 19 2019 at his home in the Netherlands after a short illness, per Variety. He was 75.

The blond-haired actor with piercing blue eyes was a force majure on screens big and small. There was always an expected nervousness he gave the viewer when playing characters, there was always a wonderful unsettling feeling he gave to the energy of whatever might have been going on in a picture, and his magnetism went toe to toe with screen stalwarts like Harrison Ford in Blade Runner and Sylvester Stallone and Billy Dee Williams in the underrated crime yarn Nighthawks.