Gunnar Hansen Has Passed Away

Gunnar Hansen, probably best known in his role as Leatherface in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, passed away yesterday. He was 68 years old.

Gunnar was born in Reykjavík, and spent the first five years of his life in Iceland before moving to the US. His big screen debut in 1974, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, had him playing Leatherface, a chainsaw-wielding maniac loosely based on noted real-life killer Ed Gein.

Leatherface would become an iconic image in the world of horror and slasher films, and the chainsaw would follow Gunnar to the film Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers and, more recently, Texas Chainsaw 3D. He has been in other films, such as The Demon Lover, and he cowrote and starred in the 1995 horror film Mosquito, but Texas Chainsaw Massacre would stand above them all as emblematic of the slasher genre.

Later in life, Gunnar would star in the Reykjavík Whale Watching Massacre, along with some 20 other films.

Below, you can see an interview with Gunnar on the set of Texas Chainsaw 3D:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rd51IMuMTiU&w=560&h=315]