This is Fresh Air. I'm David B. and Koolie, professor of television studies at Rowan University in New Jersey, Infra Terry Gross.

Today, we remember actor William Hurt, who died Sunday at the age of 71. The cause was complications from prostate cancer.

With his blonde, blue-eyed good looks, he found success as a leading man in the 1980s in the film's body heat, the big chill, and broadcast news, delivering memorable performances in each.

But Hurt thought of himself as a character actor trapped in a leading man's body.

He was a four-time Oscar nominee and won for his role in Kiss of the Spider Woman, playing a drag queen sharing a prison cell with a political dissident.

In college, he studied theology before switching to drama and briefly went on to study at Juilliard.

In New York, he performed with the Circle Repertory Company, winning an OB Award in 1977.

Hurt also starred in the film's eyewitness, gorky park, and the accidental tourist, and his memorable cameo in the film, A History of Violence, earned him an Oscar nomination.

He also worked in television and was nominated for an Emmy for his recurring role in the FX drama series Damages.

Hurt was married and divorced twice.

He was accused of physical and emotional abuse by actress Marley Matlin, who was in a relationship with him and starred opposite him in the film Children of a Lesser God.

He also struggled with alcohol and drugs.

We're going to listen to Terry's 2010 interview with William Hurt.

But first, let's listen to a clip from the modern film noir classic 1981's Body Heat.

He plays a South Florida lawyer seduced by Kathleen Turner and duped into murdering her husband.

Here he is, meeting her for the first time on a hot humid night on a Florida pier.

I can stand there with me at Yohan, but you'll have to agree not to talk about the heat.

I'm a married woman.

Meaning what?

Meaning I'm not looking for company.

And this should've said I'm a happily married woman.

That's my business.

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