1944 - 1969
Rutger Oelsen Hauer was born on January 23, 1944 in Breukelen, a town a few miles south of Amsterdam (The Netherlands).
The son of two actors, Arend and Teunke, who had a very open, modern mentality, and who also ran - and taught in - an acting school in Amsterdam (the city where he grew up), he was on stage for the very first time when he was only five years old, but his real acting career started in June 1955 in the role of Eurysakes in the Sophocles tragedy 'Ajax'.
His TV debut in front of a camera took place on December 12, 1956, with 'Asmodée' - this was his first contact with the camera eye, and that's when this long two-way attraction began.
A rebellious, wild boy, who found it difficult to accept the 
school discipline, often preferring to go to the park, the zoo or to just lounge about, (playing with matches, he once set a haystack on fire!) he ran away from home when he was 15 and got on a freighter of the Dutch Merchant Navy. His sea experience lasted almost a year and gave him the opportunity to see distant places such as Pakistan, Canada, Singapore, Saigon and the Persian Gulf. During these journeys, he became accustomed to different people and
ways of thinking, to different languages and cultures, and this gave him the freedom of mind to enter the depths of his acting roles.He also discovered he was able to pick up a lot of languages - now he has mastered English, German, French, Italian and of course Dutch and Frisian!
Back home, he attended school at night and did small jobs during the day (scene decorator, car washer, carpenter, etc.) . His passion for cars and motorcycles started at this time, and the skills he learnt would later permit him to do the most dangerous car stunts in "The Hitcher" without a double.
In 1962 he began attending an acting school in Amsterdam, but soon
dropped out to join the Army. He was almost immediately bored by the military lifestyle and so 
he had himself declared unfit for military service and dismissed. This was his first big acting role, and he played it extremely well, too!
He went back to the acting school, this time to stay, and for a short period he also worked in Basel (Switzerland) for the "Antroposofisch Centrum" as a stagehand, gardener and heating engineer. There he met his first wife and had a daughter, Aysha, now an actress, who gave him a grandson when he was in his early 40s.
After acting school, he started working with the Frisian "Noorder 
Compagnie" (1967-73) travelling throughout Holland to bring the art of the theater to small villages.
He was also director, costume designer and translator (he adapted 'Of Mice and Men' by John Steinbeck for the stage). Their repertoire was taken from authors like Vondel, Goldoni, Ionesco, Williams, Pinter, Shakespeare, Beckett, O'Neill, and so on.
In 1968 he met his life-long love Ineke, a very talented paintress and
sculptress. They got married in 1985. His film debut took place in 1969 with 'Monsieur Hawarden' but his scenes were not included in the edited version. In the same year, he gained enormous popularity for the starring role in the black and white TV series 'Floris'.
This was the beginning of a long artistic collaboration with director Paul Verhoeven.
1970-1989 1990-1999 2000-2006 2007-.....
