Bud Cort, the actor best known for his role in dark comedy Harold and Maude, has died at the age of 77.
According to Variety, Cort died in Connecticut after a long illness.
He was originally discovered by Robert Altman when he was part of a revue and the director cast him in both M*A*S*H and Brewster McCloud.
His role in Hal Ashby’s Harold and Maude, which saw him play a death-obsessed young man who develops a relationship with Ruth Gordon’s 79-year-old Holocaust survivor, earned him Golden Globe and Bafta nominations.
The film was not well-received initially by critics or audiences but became a cult classic later, included on the American Film Institute’s list of funniest films ever made.
“As I was reading the script I immediately knew it was going to be a classic film for the ages,” he said in 2012. “There was no denying it. The studio was stumped on how to publicise it … Truthfully, its success came from the people.”
In 2014, Cort told the Guardian it was “a blessing and a curse” as it led to him being typecast, getting offered only weirdo characters. He turned down the role of Billy Bibbit in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest as he wanted the lead and, after Jack Nicholson was cast, later asked for it back, but it was too late.
In the 1970s, Cort went on to star in comedy drama Why Shoot the Teacher? and a TV movie adaptation of F Scott Fitzgerald’s Bernice Bobs Her Hair with Shelley Duvall. In 1979, he was in a car accident that left him with serious injuries, breaking an arm and a leg and requiring plastic surgeries.
He later returned to acting with roles in 1980s films such as the Jamie Lee Curtis-led romance Love Letters and Tobe Hooper’s sci-fi horror Invaders from Mars. The 1990s saw him in Kevin Smith’s Dogma and queer classic But I’m a Cheerleader before he later appeared in films including Coyote Ugly, The Number 23 and Wes Anderson’s The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.
Small screen appearances also included Ugly Betty, Criminal Minds and Arrested Development. His long list of voice credits includes animated Batman, The Mask and Superman series.
Cort was in another car accident in 2011 in which his arm was almost torn off, which made it hard to find work in the years after.