Editor’s Note: This story was originally published in 2015. It has been updated to reflect William Hurt’s passing.
From Body Heat to Broadcast News, William Hurt was one of the defining faces of ’80s-era Hollywood hits. But the late actor, who died on Mar. 13 at age 71, played an equally important role in that decade’s nascent independent film movement. In 1985, Hurt starred alongside Raul Julia in the groundbreaking indie film, Kiss of the Spider Woman. “I’m proud we did it,” the actor told Yahoo Movies in an emotional 2015 interview ahead of the film’s 30th anniversary. “It’s hard to describe how grateful an artist would be to have an experience like that. It’s one of the proudest things of my life.”
An immediate art-hour sensation, Kiss of the Spider Woman grossed $17 million during its theatrical run — a then-astronomical sum in the independent film world. The film went on to receive four Oscar nominations including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay. Hurt himself was nominated for, and won, a Best Actor statue, beating out such nominees as Harrison Ford in Witness and Jack Nicholson in Prizzi’s Honor. He also became the first Hollywood star to win an Oscar for playing an out gay character, just four years after Harry Hamlin found himself ostracized for doing the same in the 20th Century Fox film, Making Love.
The AIDS crisis and the still-widespread discrimination against gay men only made Kiss of the Spider Woman all the more timely and relevant. “We had to say something about not just gay rights, but about feminine and masculine relationships, and the nature of courage and what it means to speak truth to a power so much greater than you are,” Hurt observed in 2015. “We didn’t make any money while we were shooting, so there was no angling for gratuitous reward. This was just a glorious opportunity to do the right thing.”
Despite reports that he and Babenco clashed during production due to their language barrier, Hurt described the shoot as being filled with “miracles [that] littered our entire experience.” One particular miracle that stands out in his mind occurred while he and Julia swung by the set to rehearse during what was supposed to be their day off.
“The set was just this simple platform with breakaway walls in a warehouse-type location,” Hurt recalled. “I noticed a glint in a faraway corner and climbed off the platform to look more carefully. I saw one of the film’s construction workers, who was amazed that these two American actors would take time out of their day to come to that warehouse and work so hard. He was standing there with tears rolling down his face and that was the glint I saw. He didn’t even speak our language. I thought, ‘Okay, I’m doing this for him.'”
While Hurt received the lion’s share of acclaim and awards for taking on what at the time was a risky role, Julia’s carefully modulated performance as Valentin is also essential to Spider Woman’s success. It was the role that launched the Puerto Rican-born stage actor to such high-profile films as Tequila Sunrise, Presumed Innocent and The Addams Family.
Speaking of his co-star — who passed away in 1994 after suffering a stroke — Hurt sounded genuinely moved by their time together. “I miss him. I miss a lot of people nowadays. It was way too early.” The two stayed friends in the years after Kiss of the Spider Woman, often calling each other to play chess over the phone from wherever in the world they happened to be shooting a film. “The rule was, ‘He who loses the last piece pays for the next phone call,'” Hurt recalled. “Of course, he was a much better chess player than I was, so I was paying exorbitant rates! Then one day, he didn’t call, and that was the day he died.”
Despite its importance to indie film history, Kiss of the Spider Woman has never been an easy film for viewers to find. A thorny legal dispute kept it out circulation for years, until it was re-released theatrically in 2001 courtesy of Strand Releasing. Spider Woman later debuted on DVD and Blu-ray in 2008, but those discs are now out of print and the film is unavailable to stream. Now that Hurt’s passing has renewed interest in the film, fans on Twitter are hoping that might finally change.