Gunnar Hansen (born March 4, 1947) is an Icelandic American actor and author, perhaps best known for playing Leatherface in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974).
Hansen was born in Reykjavík, Iceland, and moved to the United States when he was five. He lived in Maine until age eleven, when his family moved to Texas, where he attended both Austin High School and the University of Texas at Austin. He majored in English and mathematics as an undergra...
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Gunnar Hansen (born March 4, 1947) is an Icelandic American actor and author, perhaps best known for playing Leatherface in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974).
Hansen was born in Reykjavík, Iceland, and moved to the United States when he was five. He lived in Maine until age eleven, when his family moved to Texas, where he attended both Austin High School and the University of Texas at Austin. He majored in English and mathematics as an undergraduate, and then went to graduate school in Scandinavian Studies and English.
His first job out of high school was as a computer operator, before he started doing theater work during college. He also was a football player during high school, and for a while a bar bouncer. In 1973, just after finishing graduate school, Hansen heard that The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was being filmed in Austin and decided to try out. He got the part of Leatherface, the masked killer in the movie, and made movie history.
As the movie went on to become a cult...
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