As the death-obsessed young man Harold Chasen in the 1971 countercultural romcom Harold and Maude, the actor Bud Cort, who has died aged 77 of complications from pneumonia, set the mould for mordant bedroom iconoclasts in successive generations of indie films, from Rushmore to Ghost World to Submarine.
The film, directed by Hal Ashby, was a critical and commercial flop on release, slated by Variety as having “all the fun and gaiety of a burning orphanage” and gone from cinemas after a week. Studio executives had been uneasy about the February-to-December tryst between Cort’s character and Ruth Gordon’s septuagenarian Holocaust survivor, with more passionate bedroom material left on the cutting-room floor.
However, when the film’s tiny initial audiences watched its misanthrope hero break the fourth wall to give a faintly demonic smirk to camera, it was as though he was letting them in on the secret of his own future cultural impact – Ashby’s film gradually built a cult reputation through repertory screenings and on VHS, becoming, with its Cat Stevens soundtrack, a totem of 1970s New Hollywood.
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/feb/15/bud-cort-obituary