Biography
John Hurt was born in Chesterfield, Derbyshire to Phyllis (Massey), an amateur actress and engineer, and Arnould Herbert Hurt, a mathematician who became an Anglican clergyman.. In 1967 he began his longest relationship, which was with the French model Marie-Lise Volpeliere-Pierrot and lasted fifteen years, ended by her untimely death in a riding accident on 26 January 1983.
After that, John Hurt was married for six years, from 6th September 1984, to the Texan actress Donna Peacock, who was a friend of his (they met in a California bar). He had proposed to her the day before at Freddie Mercury's 38th birthday party in the Xenon nightclub in London, and they married at a local register office. They moved to Kenya, and tried to have children through IVF. They divorced in early January 1990. Soon after that (on 24 January 1990), John Hurt married the American film production assistant Jo Dalton, whom he had met when filming Scandal. With her, he had two sons: Alexander John Vincent (born 6 February 1990) and Nicholas Dalton (born 5 February 1993). This marriage ended in 1996 because Jo had an affair with a gardener, Arthur Shackleton, when Hurt briefly went back to Donna Peacock in Kenya. During that marriage breakdown, Hurt's drinking had also been a problem.
Another recent partner was Sarah Owen, who was twenty years younger than him and with whom he lived in County Wicklow, Ireland. He often liked drinking Guinness. In March 2005, he married the advertising film producer Ann Rees Meyers.
John's mother had died in 1975, but his father died only in November 1999, at the age of 95.
In January 2002, John Hurt received an honorary degree from the University of Derby, and in January 2006 he received an honorary degree of Doctor of Letters from the University of Hull. Hurt has been married four times.

Career

A Man for All Seasons (1966)
In Search of Gregory (1967?)
10 Rillington Place (1969)
Sinful Davey (1969)
Mr. Forbush and the Penguins (1971)
Little Malcolm (and His Struggle Against the Eunuchs) (1974)
"The Ghoul" (1975)
The Naked Civil Servant (1975) (TV)
Spectre (1976)
I, Claudius (1977) (miniseries)
Watership Down (1978) (voice)
Midnight Express (1978) (nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor)
The Lord of the Rings (1978) (voice)
Alien (1979)
The Elephant Man (1980) (nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor, won BAFTA for best actor)
Heaven's Gate (1980)
History of the World: Part I (1981)
Night Crossing (1981)
The Plague Dogs (1982) (voice)
Partners (1982)
The Osterman Weekend (1983)
King Lear (1984) (TV), with Lord Laurence Olivier as Lear
The Hit (1984)
Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984), with Richard Burton
Champions (1984)
The Black Cauldron (1985) (voice)
Aria (1986)
White Mischief (1987)
Spaceballs (1987)
The Jim Henson Hour (1989) (TV series)
Scandal (1989)
Frankenstein Unbound (1990)
The Field (1990)
King Ralph (1991)
Six Characters in Search of an Author (1992) (TV)
Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1993)
Thumbelina (1994)
Second Best (1994)
Rob Roy (1995)
Dead Man (1995)
Love and Death on Long Island (1997)
Contact (1997)
All the Little Animals (1998)
The Climb (1998)
The Tigger Movie (2000) (voice)
Captain Corelli's Mandolin (2001)
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (2001)
Crime and Punishment (2002)
Owning Mahowny (2003)
Dogville (2003) (voice)
The Alan Clark Diaries (2004)
Hellboy (2004)
Pride (2004) (TV) (voice)
Valiant (2005) (voice)
Manderlay (2005) (TV)
The Proposition (2005)
The Skeleton Key (2005)
Shooting Dogs (2005)
V for Vendetta (2006)
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2006)
The Oxford Murders (2007)
Outlander (2007)
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)