Do we like John Hurt?
Our score: 8 out of 10. No harmful words or acts turned up, a gay-history role he plainly respected, and reported charity work; the record is a bit thin on his politics, so not a 10.
Nothing new on John Hurt lately, because he died in 2017, aged 77. Searches turned up no fresh controversy, only old obituaries and tributes. So this is a look back at a finished career rather than a live stoush.
He was born in Chesterfield in 1940, the younger son of a clergyman, and the family moved around as his father changed parishes. He went to boarding school and later art school, and has said school left him with few happy memories. His parents reportedly wanted him to be an art teacher, but a chat at a party convinced him acting was what he wanted to hear.
The career arc is a ripper. A Man for All Seasons gave him his breakthrough in 1966, then came Midnight Express, Alien, The Elephant Man and Nineteen Eighty-Four, with I, Claudius and The Naked Civil Servant on the telly. He won four BAFTAs, was given the BFI Fellowship in 2010 and was knighted in 2015.
The role that matters most here is Quentin Crisp. Hurt played him in The Naked Civil Servant in 1975, then came back to the part for An Englishman in New York decades later. In 2009 he said he was reluctant at first, but called the script an extraordinarily sensitive treatment of Crisp's last 20 years and said “I do identify with Quentin.” Crisp once joked Hurt was his representative on earth.
On the harm test, we found nothing. No remarks about trans people, women, migrants or the planet, no conspiracy rabbit holes, and no history of working with culture-war outfits. He spent his career playing damaged outsiders, from Joseph Merrick to Crisp. The honest caveat is that he gave few political interviews, so the record is quiet rather than loudly good.
The good-person side is clean as far as the record goes. We found no lawsuits against him and no allegations. Dame Esther Rantzen, who founded Childline, said after his death that he agreed to help the charity straight away and was committed to charity work.