Terence Stamp arrives for the U.K. premiere of Song for Marion at the Odeon West End, in London in 2012. Stamp, 87, died Sunday morning.

Terence Stamp liked to recall how he was on the verge of becoming a tantric sex teacher at an ashram in India when, in 1977, he received a telegram from his London agent with news that he was being considered for the Superman film.

“I was on the night flight the next day,” Stamp said in an interview with his publisher Watkins Books in 2015.

After eight years largely out of work, getting the role of the arch-villain General Zod in Superman and Superman II turned the full glare of Hollywood’s limelight on the Londoner.

Buoyed by his new role, Stamp said he would respond to curious looks from passersby with a command of: “Kneel before Zod, you bast

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