Harold and Maude Star Bud Cort Dies at 77

Bud Cort — star of Harold and Maude and Brewster McCloud — has died. He was 77. According to Variety, longtime friend Doran Hannaway confirmed news of his death after a long illness. Cort is perhaps best known for playing the disaffected Harold in Hal Ashby’s Harold and Maude. He also worked with Robert Altman on two movies, M*A*S*H and Brewster McCloud. 

Born Walter Edward Cox in 1948, the actor changed his name to Bud Cort to avoid confusion with Wally Cox, the voice of Underdog. Robert Altman discovered him in a nightclub act, and gave him the role of Pvt. Lorenzo Boone in M*A*S*H. Cort then starred in Altman’s cult flop Brewster McCloud. Despite it’s lack of success at the box office, the film was one of Altman’s personal favorites and was the first starring role for Shelley Duvall.

The following year, Cort starred in Harold and Maude as the death-obsessed young man who has a May-December romance with a Holocaust survivor played by Ruth Gordon. “I walked into this room and Hal [Ashby] was the first person I saw,” he recalled in 2014. “Hal made me feel so warm and welcome. He said, ‘This is Colin Higgins who wrote the script, this is Chuck Mulvehill who’s producing it,’ and I just looked at all three of them and said, ‘I’m playing this part.’ And Hal laughed and said, ‘I guess you are!’” His work in the film earned him nominations at the BAFTAs and Golden Globes. “As I was reading the script I immediately knew it was going to be a classic film for the ages,” Cort said in 2012. “There was no denying it. The studio was stumped on how to publicize it … Truthfully, its success came from the people.” The film took a while to reach classic status, but now it’s enshrined in the comedy canon. It’s no. 45 on AFI’s 100 Years 100 Laughs list, and is the namesake for Maude Apatow.

Cort told the Guardian that Harold and Maude was a “blessing and a curse,” because it led to his typecasting. In an attempt to get away form his quirked up character prison, Cort turned down what would eventually become Jack Nicholson’s role in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Then in 1979, Cort nearly died in an accident on the Hollywood Freeway. He had another accident in 2011, which almost tore his arm off.

Cort continued working after his accidents, in part getting gigs from the people who grew up identifying with Harold. Cort voiced Toyman across the DCAU — playing the character on Superman: The Animated Series, Static Shock, and Justice League Unlimited. In 1999, he played God’s earthly disguise in Kevin Smith’s Dogma. Cort also appeared in films like The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou, Heat, and But I’m a Cheerleader, and on TV shows like Eagleheart and Ugly Betty.