Superman, Priscilla Queen of the Desert Star Was 87

English-born Terence Stamp, who burned brightly as a young actor in the 1960s, with praise heaped upon him for roles in “Billy Budd,” “The Collector” and “Far From the Madding Crowd,” memorably played the villain General Zod in the Superman films and was the highlight of Steven Soderbergh’s “The Limey,” died Sunday, his family confirmed to Reuters. He was 87.

“He leaves behind an extraordinary body of work, both as an actor and as a writer that will continue to touch and inspire people for years to come,” said the statement from his family.

Stamp brought a fierce, blue-eyed stare and an intense integrity to his roles.

He was nominated for an Oscar for best supporting actor for 1962’s “Billy Budd.”

More recently he had appeared in Tim Burton’s 2014 film “Big Eyes,” in which Stamp played an influential art critic who scorns the work of Margaret Keane, which is popular with the masses. In 2013 he played another aesthete, an art thief who has become an informer, in “The Art of the Thief.” His final roles were a brief cameo in Edgar Wright’s 2021 “Last Night in Soho” and an appearance on the TV series “His Dark Materials.”

From 2003 to 2011, the actor, in a twist from his earlier role as a villain in the “Superman” films, had recurred (via voice only) on the TV series “Smallville” as Jor-El, Superman’s real father from the planet Krypton.

But it all started for Stamp with the splash he made in 1962 in his first film, Peter Ustinov’s adaptation of Herman Melville’s novel “Billy Budd.” The New York Times said of the young actor’s performance: “Terence Stamp, a new English actor with a sinewy, boyish frame and the face of a Botticelli angel, is perfect as Billy Budd, the innocent, trusting sailor who cannot comprehend wickedness. Billy Budd, in character, and in performance, is almost too good to be true.”

While Stamp began his career with this…