Bud Cort Dies: ‘Harold and Maude’ Actor Was 77
What To Know
- Bud Cort, best known for his roles in Harold and Maude and M*A*S*H, died at age 77 after a long illness.
- Discovered by director Robert Altman, Cort became famous for playing eccentric, misunderstood characters, with his performance in Harold and Maude defining his career but also leading to typecasting.
- His career was impacted by serious car accidents in 1979 and 2011, and he is survived by several siblings and their families.
Actor Bud Cort, who was best known for the role of macabre-minded Harold in Hal Ashby‘s Harold and Maude and the sensitive Private Boone in Robert Altman‘s M*A*S*H, died Wednesday, February 11, after a long illness. He was 77.
Born Walter Edward Cox on March 29, 1948, in Rye, New York, Cort was discovered by director Robert Altman while performing in a revue, a chance encounter that would change the course of his career. Altman was immediately struck by the young actor’s unusual presence and gentle, slightly otherworldly quality, and in 1970 he cast him in two films that would introduce Cort to movie audiences, M*A*S*H and Brewster McCloud.
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His breakthrough came only a year later with the cult classic Harold and Maude, the role that would define him for generations of film lovers. Cort played Harold, a wealthy but deeply troubled 20-year-old man consumed by thoughts of death. Everything changes when he meets Maude, played by Ruth Gordon, a spirited 79-year-old Holocaust survivor with a fearless embrace of life. In a 2014 interview with the Guardian, Cort called the role “a blessing and a curse” that led to him being typecast as an oddball — in a scenario typical for Cort in the film’s aftermath, an attempt to get cast as McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest failed to pan out, but they offered him the role of offbeat Billy Bibbit instead (a part he passed on).
A terrifying 1979 car accident also slowed his career, as Cort court required multiple surgeries to help heal the broken bones, lost teeth and facial lacerations inflicted by the crash.
Known for playing eccentric, misunderstood “manchild” characters in the early 1970s, his later work would include 1984’s Electric Dreams, John Doe Jersey (a.k.a. God) in Dogma, Bill Ubell in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, and the voice of The King in the animated film The Little Prince.
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Cort was in another serious car accident in 2011, and the announcement of his death said he had battled a lengthy illness, though no further details have been provided to the public.
He is survived by his brother Joseph Cox and his sister-in-law Vickie and their daughters, Meave, Brytnn, and Jesse; his sister Kerry Cox.; his sister and brother-in-law, Tracy Cox Berkman and Edward Berkman, and their sons, Daniel and Peter. He is also survived by his sister, Shelly Cox Dufour and brother-in-law Robert Dufour, and nieces Madeline and Lucie.
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