Bud Cort, Star of Seventies Cult Classic ‘Harold and Maude,’ Dead at 77

Bud Cort, the character actor best known for his performance in Hal Ashby’s dark comedy romance Harold and Maude, died Wednesday. He was 77. 

Cort’s friend, the producer Dorian Hannaway, confirmed his death on Facebook. An exact cause of death was not given, though Hannaway said Cort died in Connecticut “after a long illness.” 

For nearly 50 years, Cort worked steadily in Hollywood, popping up in films by Robert Altman and Wes Anderson, as well as a variety of television shows. He earned the widest recognition for his turn in Harold and Maude, picking up nominations at both the Golden Globes and the BAFTAs. 

In the 1971 film, Cort played Harold, a death-obsessed rich kid, who strikes up a relationship with Maude (Ruth Gordon), a 79-year-old free spirit with an irrepressible zest for life. While Cort earned his accolades, the film received mixed reviews upon release and flopped at the box office. Years later, however, it was definitively reclaimed as a cult classic. (It landed at Number 24 on Rolling Stone’s list of the 50 Best Romantic Comedies, and Number 69 on the 100 Best Films of the 1970s.)

Speaking with The Guardian in 2014, Cort said he was immediately attracted to the role of Harold, relating to the character’s gloomy outlook and need for connection, in part because of his own childhood. (He described himself as an emotional child with a father, a World War II vet, who was “very cold.”) When he walked into his audition for Harold and Maude, Cort met Ashby, screenwriter Colin Higgins, and producer Chuck Mulvehill, and told them, “I’m playing this part.”

Cort added, “Hal laughed and said, ‘I guess you are!’” 

Born and raised outside of New York City, Cort grew up loving theater, but nearly became a priest before deciding to pursue acting. He picked up a few minor film roles in the late Sixties, but secured his break-out with a small part in Altman’s 1970 classic, M*A*S*H. Altman then cast Cort as the lead in his next film, the black comedy, Brewster McCloud, released that same year. 

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Harold and Maude arrived the following year, and Cort would eventually refer to the film as “a blessing and a curse.” While the film wasn’t a huge hit, it nevertheless led to Cort being typecast as outcasts and oddballs. Rather than leaning into it, Cort turned down the parts he was being offered, including a spot as Billy Bibbit in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (the part later went to Brad Dourif).

“Because I worked so hard on that performance [in Harold and Maude], everyone assumed I was that person,” he told The New York Times in 2000. “I’ve been through the whole thing of being followed around. People used to come to my hotel and leave tombstones and pictures of dead babies. I try to talk to them, tell them they missed the point of the movie.”

In 1972, Cort appeared in a short-lived Broadway play called Wise Child, while the following year he popped up on an episode of Columbo. He didn’t take another film role until 1975, when he appeared in the Italian crime film, Hallucination Strip. In 1976, he starred opposite Shelley Duvall in Joan Micklin Silver’s TV adaptation of the F. Scott Fitzgerald short story, Bernice Bobs Her Hair. 
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Cort’s career, however, was upended when he nearly died in a car crash in 1979. The accident left him with numerous broken bones, a fractured skull, and missing teeth. When he did return to acting in the Eighties, work was slow, though in 1991 he did direct, co-write, and star-in a film of his own, Ted and Venus. (The all-star cast featured Carol Kane, James Brolin, Rhea Perlman, Woody Harrelson, Timothy Leary, and Andrea Martin.)

In the coming years, Cort would be offered an array of solid parts, including roles in Michael Mann’s Heat, Kevin Smith’s Dogma, Ed Harris’ Jackson Pollock biopic, and Anderson’s The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. He also did frequent voice work for animated projects, and popped up on TV shows like Arrested Development and Criminal Minds. He made his last film appearance in the 2016 short, Affections.