William McChord Hurt was an American actor. He received his acting training at the Juilliard School and began acting on stage in the 1970s. Hurt made his film debut in 1980 as a troubled scientist in Ken Russell's science-fiction feature Altered States, for which he received a Golden Globe nomination for New Star of the Year. He subsequently played a leading role, as a lawyer who succumbs to the temptations of Kathleen Turner, in the neo-noir Body Heat (1981). He played another leading role, as Arkady Renko, in Gorky Park (1983).
