CONWAY — Academy Award-winning actor William Hurt, who died Sunday, was hailed by fellow actors and news outlets around the world Monday for his roles in such movies as “Broadcast News,” “Body Heat” and “Kiss of the Spider Woman.”
Hurt may have been a big-name Hollywood actor in the 1980s, but here in the Mount Washington Valley, locals remember him for other things, like being a fly fishing buddy, a food fight target and spirited dinner guest.
The Hollywood Reporter said Hurt, 71, died at his home in Portland, Ore. He had previously been diagnosed with prostate cancer that spread to the bone in 2018, WMUR said.
Hurt won an Oscar for his role as a gay prisoner in “Kiss of the Spider Woman” in 1985 and was nominated for portraying a dimwitted anchor in “Broadcast News” and his role as a teacher in “Children of a Lesser God.” More recently, he was nominated for an Emmy his work portraying Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson in the HBO drama “Too Big to Fail.”
He was introduced to the valley by the late Pat Blymyer and his wife Ginger Blymyer, who now lives in Ojai, Calif. Hurt would come to visit the area after the Blymyers purchased the Snowvillage Inn in Eaton, which they owned from 1978-86.
Ginger, a former hairdresser for movie stars like Hurt, said the actor and her husband became friends when Pat worked as a gaffer on the set of the 1981 film “Eyewitness,” which also starred Sigourney Weaver.
After Pat died in 2008, Hurt donated to his memorial.
Weaver once joined Hurt on a visit to Eaton, Ginger Blymyer recalled.
“Sigourney came and sat on the top of Foss Mountain, and I’m not sure what Bill did,” she said. “He probably just hung around town and saw that he liked it.”
Blymyer said she worked on Hurt’s hair for “Trial By Jury.” She said he was “very nice” to her.
Snowvillage Inn guests was aware Hurt would stay there from time to time, and Ginger would warn them he wasn’t always personable. She said perhaps he was just trying to stay in the character of whatever role he was to play at the time.
“He was always kind of angsty,” said Blymyer, adding that even after he bought a house on Conway Lake, he would come to the inn because the road to the house wasn’t always plowed.
“I think he really liked the area up there because they didn’t treat him like he was anybody special so he could be himself.”
Dick Stewart, now of Eaton, met Hurt through his former fly shop, the North Country Angler. (The shop was later owned by Bill Thompson and is now owned and run by Steve Angers.)
“He was interested in fly fishing,” said Stewart “He would come in there frequently, and we became friends.”
They would fish for trout in local rivers and in Maine, and once took a trip to the to the Crooked River, a tributary of Sebago Lake. Stewart recalled they didn’t have much luck until they switched to “almost microscopic flies.”
“They’re actually the size 24 and 26, in fishing lingo, which means they’re tiny, tiny flies, smaller than a mosquito,” said Stewart. “It was memorable in the sense that we’d never had so much success with such tiny flies.”
It might have been the night of that successful fishing trip that the Stewarts had dinner with Hurt.
“It was on that occasion my wife Kathy met him, and I don’t recall the exact circumstances but he gave her a kiss in the living room,” said Stewart. “It became a source of teasing her ever since … Being kissed by a Hollywood star at the time was a big deal.”
With a laugh, Kathy explained she “had a moment” with Hurt. “Bill came to our house for dinner, and he and Dick did their thing, talking,” she said. “At the end of the evening, Bill just leaned over and kissed me.” She confirmed the kiss was on the lips.
“It was surprising,” said Kathy. “And it was most enjoyable. He was a lovely man.”
On one occasion, Hurt brought his then-girlfriend, deaf actress Marlee Matlin, his co-star in “Children of a Lesser God,” to the fly shop.
Dick Stewart, who said the last time he saw Hurt was in 1987, confirmed the actor ended up buying a home on the north end of Conway Lake and right on the water. Stewart said he and Kathy looked at it but realized it was out of their price range.
It is located in Dolloff Cove on the west side of the lake, and today is owned by Glen Crawford, whose family has renovated it in the style of Frank Lloyd Wright, taking cues from a student of Wright’s who designed it. Like the exterior, the inside has a linear feel, designed with straight lines and lots of wood.
Jim Salmon has lived on Conway Lake since 1983 and remembers when Realtor Carla Badger showed him the house he eventually bought, she said that “some actor” lived nearby.
Salmon also recalled some time later his 18-year-old daughter, Sherry, was having dinner at the Red Parka Pub in Glen with Beth Campbell, before she married Wally Campbell. Both were waitresses at the time at Wally’s North Conway restaurant, Fandangle’s, which burned in 2007.
Salmon said Hurt was having dinner across the room, and people were congratulating him on recently winning the Oscar for “Kiss of the Spider Woman.” Sherry and Beth, well-known locals, were chatting with others in the Red Parka, causing Hurt to walk over to their table and observe, “You’re more popular than I am tonight.”
George Cleveland of Tamworth got to know Hurt from seeing him around town. One day, the Blymyers, Hurt and Cleveland’s then-wife took a cooking class from Ramona Stafford, who ran Stafford’s in the Field, which is now the Preserve at Chocorua.
“Ramona Stafford was known as being one of the most extraordinary chefs ever to walk the face of the earth,” said Cleveland, adding that frequently cooking class attendees would get “festive” with drink.
“I remember one particular occasion when Bill Hurt and my wife at the time got into some kind of pesky discussion over something,” said Cleveland. “And I believe she ended up emptying a pan of something over him.”
Luckily, the food wasn’t hot. The food attack, he said, was all in good fun. “I think he was kind of needling her, and she needled him back, and that’s just sort of how it ended up,” said Cleveland.
Sun Publisher Mark Guerringue contributed to this article.
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