Actor Peter Faber, star of Dutch cinema’s golden age, dies at 82

Peter Faber, one of the best-known faces of Dutch film and theatre for half a century, has died at the age of 82.

Faber was admitted to hospital in early July with breathing difficulties related to untreatable heart problems, his family told news agency ANP.

He broke through in the 1970s, widely regarded as the golden age of Dutch cinema, with roles in Keetje Tippel and Paul Verhoeven’s wartime classic Soldaat van Oranje – the film that later spawned the long-running musical which closed last month after 16 years.

He also took the title role in the 1976 film of Max Havelaar, Multatuli’s classic novel about Dutch colonial rule, and appeared alongside Sean Connery and Anthony Hopkins in Richard Attenborough’s A Bridge Too Far.

Faber began his career as a co-founder of Het Werkteater, an Amsterdam collective set up in the early 1970s to shake up Dutch theatre with performances about ordinary people and recognisable emotions. He won the Louis d’Or, the top Dutch theatre prize for a male actor, twice.

He kept working into his eighties. His final film role came in 2023 in Sweet Dreams, the Dutch entry for the 2024 Oscars, in which he appeared alongside his son Jesse.

Faber often spoke about his difficult upbringing, part of which he spent living on the streets of Amsterdam as a teenager. In 2008 he set up the Peter Faber Foundation to help young people build confidence, and to “make the switch from destructive to creative energy”. Its motto is “I can do it, I want it, I’m doing it. Now!”

A public memorial service will be held at Het Zonnehuis in Amsterdam-Noord on Monday between 10am and midday.