ACTOR · BORN 1940 · DIED 2017

John Hurt

Born

22 January 1940, Chesterfield, Derbyshire, England, UK

Died

25 January 2017

Known for

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (2001), Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011), Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010), Alien (1979)

35 archived facts · 4 topics · 1 source · Last reviewed Sep 2026

John Hurt's Siblings and Parents: 8 Family Facts

1. #004

   A former alcoholic, John Hurt gave up cigarettes and alcohol after his fourth marriage.

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2. #006

   He trained to be a painter at Grimsby Art School in Grimsby, Lincolnshire, England.

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3. #010

   From 1967 until 1983, he lived with Marie-Lise Volpeliere-Pierrot, until her death in a riding accident in Oxfordshire. They rode together, and he witnessed the accident in which her horse threw her and she landed on her head on the road.

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4. #013

   Hurt's older sister became a schoolteacher in Australia. His brother, the eldest of three siblings, converted to Roman Catholicism and became a monk, Brother Anselm, first at Downside (a Benedictine school in England) and later at Glenstal Abbey (County Limerick, Ireland), where as of 2019 he was still living in retirement, though he had been barred from interacting with students following abuse allegations.

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5. #018

   On 16 January 2006 he received an honorary degree (Doctor of Letters) from the University of Hull in Yorkshire.

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6. #021

   John Hurt's sister died of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) during the filming of The Proposition (2005).

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7. #022

   John Hurt trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London, England, and became a Fellow.

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8. #025

   John Hurt was the youngest of the three children of Arnold Herbert Hurt and Phyllis Massey. His father was the vicar of Shirebrook, Derbyshire, and the vicar of the parish of St John's in Sunderland, County Durham. When Hurt was five, his mother opened a school in his father's vicarage.

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