Superman actor Terence Stamp dies aged 87 as family release emotional statement
Joe Yates
Featured Image Credit: Vinnie Zuffante/Getty
Actor Terence Stamp, who most famously played Superman villain General Zod, has died at the age of 87.
The family of the one-time Oscar-nominated actor confirmed his death in a statement issued this morning (August 17).
His family issued the following statement: "He leaves behind an extraordinary body of work, both as an actor and as a writer that will continue to touch and inspire people for years to come. We ask for privacy at this sad time."
The cause of death is yet to be confirmed.
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Stamp, of Stepney in London, won a Golden Globe back in 1963 for 'Most Promising Newcomer' following his performance in the hit film Billy Budd.
Speaking about the beginning of his career, Stamp said: "The great blessing of my life is that I had the really hard bit at the beginning because we were really poor."
In 2019, he featured as Malcolm Quince in Murder Mystery, a Netflix production that starred Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston - who respectively played a New York cop and his wife.
Incredibly, Stamp's on-screen career spanned across seven decades - from 1960 until 2021, but when he first told his parents he wanted to pursue a life in acting, it didn't go down too well.
Speaking about it with The Hollywood Reporter back in 2013, he said: "This was so private this, this desire, this wish - it was like I thought that I would kind of dissipate it if I spoke about it somehow.
"But when we got our first TV, I started commenting - it was a way of letting my family know. I started saying things like, 'oh I could do that', 'I could do better than that', and my dad wore it for the first few times and then he said, 'Son, people like us don't do things like that', and I went to protest and he said, 'Son, I don't want you to talk about it anymore'.
"Now in retrospect he was trying to protect me from something that to him seemed beyond impossible, and then that gave me the energy, and of course I had to leave home because I couldn't really go against my dad - and that's when I won the scholarship to the Webber Douglas Academy."
Before finding his way in front of the camera, Stamp worked at theaters in London, England. His big break came when he was cast as Billy Budd in the film of the same name.