He began as a nameless infant in wartime ruins and became a face you could never quite forget. His childhood carried the weight of hunger, cold rooms, and the echo of a missing father, yet he moved through the world as if every bruise were preparation. When chance brushed past him in a London café, he didn’t blink. He walked into the frame and refused to leave it, even when the roles were monstrous, perverse, or cruel.
What set him apart was not the strangeness of his characters, but the humanity he smuggled into them. He made horror tender, queerness defiant, and brokenness strangely dignified. In his desert home, surrounded by color and silence, he crafted a final act of calm rebellion: growing older without apology. Death closed his eyes, but the camera never does; somewhere, that unblinking gaze is still daring us to meet it.
