British actor Terence Stamp, icon of the Swinging Sixties, dies

Superman has lost one of his many nemeses. Terence Stamp, who played the supervillain General Zod in the first two installments of the superhero from Krypton, has died, his family announced on Sunday, August 17. After emerging as an actor on the London scene and becoming an icon of the Swinging Sixties, he achieved fame through an electric filmography: hired by Pasolini for Theorem in 1968, he took on the role of Arthur Rimbaud in A Season in Hell (1971) and thus, the megalomaniac leader of the Kryptonians in 1978 and again in 1981.

"He leaves behind an extraordinary body of work, both as an actor and a writer, a source of inspiration for years to come," his family wrote in a statement.

Born in London in 1938, Terrence Stamp endured the bombings of the British capital during World War II before leaving school for a career in advertising, reports Reuters, before attending drama school. His career took off with a bang, with an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor ( Billy Budd ) in 1963 and a Best Actor award at Cannes in 1968 for The Obsessed.

After his appearances in Superman, Stamp, who had also studied yoga in India, continued his career by playing the role of Ralph "Bernadette" Bassenger in Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1995), that of a "poignant bastard" in The Englishman (1999) and that of a positive thinking guru in Yes Man, with Jim Carrey (2008). "Vulnerable and powerful", "intense and detached", as Libération wrote in a 1995 profile, he confided in this way about his crossing of the desert: "I had been so identified with the sixties that when the era ended, I was finished with it."