Actor Rutger Hauer, who was best-known for his role as the android in the 1982 sci-fi classic "Blade Runner", has died at the age of 75.

Dutch news agency ANP reported on Wednesday that Hauer passed away last Friday after a short illness.

Hauer's non-profit HIV/AIDS charity, the Rutger Hauer Starfish Association, said on its website that it is "with infinite sadness that after a very short illness, on Friday, July 19, 2019, Rutger passed away peacefully at his Dutch home."

The funeral took place on Wednesday as the world paid tribute.

"RIP the great Rutger Hauer: an intense, deep, genuine and magnetic actor that brought truth, power and beauty to his films," Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro tweeted.

"Rutger was to me what Marcello Mastroianni was to (Federico) Fellini, an alter ego," Dutch director Paul Verhoeven, who gave Hauer his first big break, told the Dutch national ANP news agency.

"I'm especially deeply sad that he's here no more. I am going to miss him terribly," he added.

Hauer also made a name for himself in the UK for a series of Guinness beer commercials, as well as starring opposite Sylvester Stallone in "Nighthawks," but it was for his role as Harrison Ford's nemesis in Ridley Scott's epic, "Blade Runner," that he will be best remembered.

jsi/se (Reuters, AFP, AP)

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