Icon of London's Swinging Sixties
Terence Stamp, who has died aged 87, was an emblematic figure of the Swinging Sixties, said The Guardian. Dubbed "the world's best-looking man" by the press, he was in constant demand by some of the greatest directors of the day, from Ken Loach to Federico Fellini. He played the swaggering Sergeant Troy in John Schlesinger's adaptation of "Far from the Madding Crowd" (1967); the irresponsible boyfriend in Loach's "Poor Cow" (1967); and Monica Vitti's knife-throwing sidekick in "Modesty Blaise" (1966). He was romantically involved with Julie Christie, and had a long relationship with Jean Shrimpton; he caroused with his flatmate Michael Caine. Despite his extensive and varied work in the decades that followed, Stamp will "always be associated with that exhilarating period".
Terence Henry Stamp was born in east London in 1938, the eldest son of Thomas Stamp, a merchant seaman and Thames tug boat stoker, and Ethel, "who had her work cut out bringing up four sons and one daughter", said The Times. Bombed out of Stepney, the family moved to Plaistow, where the eldest attended grammar school, and then got a job at a London advertising agency. All the while, he nursed a desire to be an actor. But it wasn't until he saw James Dean in "East of Eden", he recalled, that he thought: "Maybe I could actually do this." Soon after, he got a place at Webber Douglas drama school. His father, a remote alcoholic, was unimpressed by son's ambitions and penchant for sharp dressing, calling him "Little Lord Flaunt". Although working-class actors were suddenly in demand in edgy films, Stamp's first screen role was a traditional one: in Peter Ustinov's "Billy Budd" (1962), which resulted in an Oscar nod. The film, and a string of big roles that followed, such as the warped clerk in "The Collector" (1965), made him famous. Stamp's romance with Christie is thought to have given The Kinks their lines about "Terry and Julie" in "Waterloo Sunset"; and he opened a chic canteen in Chelsea with the photographer Terence Donovan.
Yet at the end of the 1960s, his career fell off a cliff. "It's a mystery to me," he observed. "I was in my prime, but when the 1960s ended, I ended with it." His agent informed him that directors were now "looking for a young Terence Stamp". In 1969, he suddenly left London. Having long been interested in eastern mysticism, for several years he led "a nomadic hippy existence off the beaten track". He became a vegetarian, took up yoga and transcendental meditation, studied Sufism and experimented with fasting and celibacy. He spent several years in an ashram in India, in Pune, studying under Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. He was meditating there in 1976 when he received a telegram addressed to "Clarence Stamp", offering him the role of the villainous General Zod in the first major "Superman" film. Having feared that he would never act again, he promptly took the next plane out. "Superman" and its sequel proved to be massive hits. And Stamp, relaunched, remained busily employed for the next four decades.
Notable successes included his roles in Oliver Stone's "Wall Street" (1987); Steven Soderbergh's "The Limey" (1999); and his bravura performance as the drag queen Bernadette in the Australian film "The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert" (1994), which netted him Bafta and Golden Globe nominations. But "despite flashes of brilliance, it was agreed that his career had never scaled the heights it once seemed to promise", said The Telegraph. Perhaps in part this was because he was thought chilly and difficult professionally, seldom getting on with directors. Stamp remained unmarried until 2002, when he wed Elizabeth O'Rourke, some 35 years his junior; the marriage was dissolved in 2008. In later life he lived an almost ascetic existence in his rooms at Albany in Piccadilly. He travelled by bus (with a bus pass), and spent little on food and clothes. He devoted two hours a day to meditation and yoga, and said that he taught his many godchildren to recite mantras and to stand on their heads.
