After Blade Runner, around the time I graduated from university in 1984 and returned to MTS Incorporated at the newly opened Tower Video in Tacoma and later Seattle, I started digging into Rutger Hauer’s earlier work. I had already worked for Tower before that, first at Tower Posters and then at Tower Records from about 1980 to 1982, but it was during the mid 1980s while I was back at Tower Video that I really began exploring Hauer’s filmography.

That was when I discovered his long creative partnership with Paul Verhoeven. The two had already been major stars in the Netherlands for years, with Hauer breaking out in Verhoeven’s films such as Turkish Delight, Keetje Tippel, Soldier of Orange, and Spetters. Around this same time, Verhoeven’s The 4th Man also caught my attention and drew me deeper into his European catalog, to watch his career in America eventually with Robocop, which showed how bold and inventive his early work was long before his Hollywood period.

That also led me deeper into Rutger's world and his website, his world travels in the early 2000s. He chose a short story of mine for his 2-year long, weekly short story contest ("Poor Lord Ritchie's Answer"). I submitted that story as I knew he'd love it and he said about it that it had "heart", which was how he chose his acting roles.

As many fans on his website did, we got to know him very well. He would chat with us online from around the world, he chatted with my kids. He told of us his travels and troubles, such a very humane, caring guy, he is missed.

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