‘Harold and Maude’ Star Dies at 77

Bud Cort, the acclaimed character actor who became a household name as one half of the eponymous couple in Harold and Maude, has died at the age of 77.

According to The Hollywood Reporter,  the BAFTA and Golden Globe-nominated star died in Connecticut—not far from where he was born in Rye, New York—on Wednesday due to complications from pneumonia stemming from a long illness. Cort’s longtime friend, producer Dorian Hannaway, confirmed the actor’s passing. 

“Bud Cort was a savant at acting, at theater, and he was blessed with a passion for this as a young man as he loved art,” Hannaway told The Hollywood Reporter, recounting his love of Broadway shows and how he used to regularly skip school in order to attend matinee performances of Barbra Streisand performing Funny Girl. 

“He would hang out at the stage door with Barbra’s sister, Roslyn Kind,” Hannaway said. “He would go to every performance he could. He just loved the theater. He wanted to be that creative person from the time he was a child.”

In a career that spanned half a century, Cort brought his one-of-a-kind charisma to more than 80 film and television roles in a variety of genres. And success found him relatively quickly. 

After playing the obligatory dues with small, uncredited roles in the late 1960s, when he was still a teen, Cort landed the role of Private Boone in Robert Altman’s classic 1970 war comedy M*A*S*H, after the young actor caught the legendary director’s attention in a revue performance. The two collaborated again on Brewster McCloud, which was released the same year as M*A*S*H.

Cort’s most enduring role, however, came one year later, in Hal Ashby’s Harold and Maude. The jet-black comedy follows the adventures of Harold Chasen (Cort), a 20-year-old who is obsessed with death and spends most of his time staging elaborate suicide scenes in an effort to shock his unamused mother (Vivian Pickles)—a wealthy socialite who expects him to behave in a very particular way. 

Harold’s life changes when he meets Maude Chardin (Ruth Gordon), a free-spirited 79-year-old who knows that death is not so far off for her, and so makes sure to live each day she has to the fullest and find joy wherever she can. What begins as an odd friendship between two strangers eventually blossoms into a May-December romance. 

While the movie initially struggled at the box office in America, it quickly gained a cult following that remains to this day. Harold and Maude was selected for preservation by the National Film Registry in 1997. It is ranked No. 45 on the American Film Institute’s list of the 100 funniest movies of all time.

While Cort has been vocal about his love of the movie that made him a household name, and expressed what a special place it held in his heart, there was a downside—and one his mentor, Altman, predicted: it got the actor typecast.

“It typecast me,” Cort said in a 2010 interview. “I didn’t make a film for five years.” He also shared that he didn’t make any money from it. Still, it led to plum roles working with top directors and opposite major stars—including a role in Michael Mann’s beloved Heat.

“I have made more money off that one and three-quarters scenes in Heat than I made for Harold and Maude,” Cort said in the same interview. “Every once in a while I’ll get a check in the mail for like 11 cents from Paramount. They still claim the movie hasn’t made any money. It’s insane. It’s not nice.”

Still, Cort’s legacy goes far beyond those earliest roles. In addition to Heat, he appeared in Dogma, But I’m a Cheerleader, Coyote Ugly, Pollock, and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. He also made a memorable appearance, playing himself, in Arrested Development. All of this despite being in a serious car crash in 1979 that nearly killed him—and remained a source of pain and health issues throughout the rest of his life.

According to Variety, a memorial service for the beloved actor will be held at a later date.