“It is with immense sadness that the whānau [family] of Sam Neill share the news of his passing on Monday 13th July, in Sydney, Australia. Sam was surrounded by family and passed with the dignity that has characterized his whole life,”

Neill’s family said: “The loss was sudden and unexpected but blessed by the fact that Sam remained cancer free. They would like to express their deepest gratitude to the staff at St Vincent’s Private Hospital for their incredible care. More details will be shared later, but for now, on behalf of the family, we ask that you respect their privacy as they navigate this immeasurable loss.”

He attracted attention in horror films released in 1981: “Omen III: The Final Conflict,” his first major Hollywood, in which he played the adult incarnation of satanic spawn Damien Thorn, and Polish writer-director Andrzej Zulawski’s Possession,” in which Neill and co-star Isabelle Adjani (winner of Cannes Fest best actress prize) played doubled roles in a stunning, agonizing body-horror saturnalia.

Two features opposite Meryl Streep raised his profile as leading man. In “Plenty” (1985), Aussie director Fred Schepisi’s adaptation of David Hare’s play, he portrayed British spy who rekindles brief romance with a French resistance fighter.

In Schepisi’s masterpiece A Cry in the Dark (1988), a drama based on  sensational Australian trial, Neill and Streep played pastor and wife accused in the disappearance and probable death of their infant daughter.

The actor then made Phillip Noyce’s popular suspense thriller Dead Calm, which paired him with another popular Down Under star, Nicole Kidman.

In 1990, Neill was featured in the box office smash: The Hunt for Red October, the first adaptation from novelist Tom Clancy’s series of Jack Ryan thrillers, playing officer on the titular Russian submarine commanded by Captain Marko Ramius (Sean Connery) and being tracked by CIA agent Ryan (Alec Baldwin). The feature grossed more than $200 million globally.

His next high-profile works were not successful: “Until the End of the World” (1991), Wim Wenders’ catastrophically recut, globe-trotting futuristic drama, which proved commercial catastrophe.

Then in John Carpenter’s misguided Chevy Chase vehicle, the comedy-fantasy Memoirs of an Invisible Man (1992).

However, 1993 proved to be Neill’s annum mirabilis, starring in Campion’s period drama “The Piano,” as the sadistic husband of a deliberately mute woman (Holly Hunter) displaced with her daughter (Anna Paquin) in New Zealand. The offbeat film became critical and audience hit, grossing $140 million, and earned Oscars for Hunter, Paquin and screenwriter Campion.

That film’s success was dwarfed by Spielberg’s thriller Jurassic Park, the adaptation of Michael Crichton’s bestseller, which marked his best-known character, ass paleontologist Dr. Alan Grant, who tries to save a group of terrified visitors to a island theme park after genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok.

Jurassic Park grossed $914 million on its initial release.

Neill returned as Grant in two of the original’s five sequels, “Jurassic Park III” (2001) and “Jurassic World Dominion,” the third of second trilogy in which marauding dinosaurs have escaped Isla Nubar to terrorize the world.

The actor said about his decades-spanning work as the character, “I always think Alan Grant is like old comfortable pair of boots. They’ve seen better days, but they’re really comfortable, and there’s no way you’ll get rid of those. You put on the comfortable boots and the hat, and you’re back in it.

“What was familiar is what’s true of all the ‘Jurassic’ films, they’re not dinosaur films. These are films about people, ordinary people like a paleontologist or a mathematician, but in very, very extreme situations. It’s the people that generate these films. You can’t have movie with dinosaur as the lead because the dinosaurs have limited interests. They just want to breed and eat things.”

He followed up “Jurassic Park” with roles in Disney’s live-action “The Jungle Book” and Carpenter’s H.P. Lovecraft homage “In the Mouth of Madness.”

Neill bowed as writer-director with “Cinema of Unease,” a short feature of New Zealand cinema.

He remained active in Aussie cinema, and reunited with Judy Davis in 1996 in political black comedy Children of the Revolution.

But he balanced that work with major Hollywood productions like the sci-fi film “Event Horizon” (1997) an expensive box office failure, and “The Horse Whisperer” (1998), the Western drama drawn from Nicholas Evans’ popular novel, which collected more than $187 million internationally.

On the small screen, Neill played Kansas detective Alvin Dewey in the miniseries remake of Truman Capote’s “In Cold Blood.”

His turn in “Merlin” (1998) as the Arthurian wizard collected Primetime Emmy and Golden Globe nods as best actor in a miniseries or TV film.

“The Dish,” a comedy-drama about Australia’s role in the international space program that became the country’s biggest box office hit. While audiences’ hunger for saurian thrills waned with “Jurassic Park III,” Neill’s second turn as scientist Grant still drew $368 million internationally.

Her increasingly made Australian and New Zealand-based film and TV productions; he was nominated for best actor honors for lead in historical telefilm “Jessica.”

He received similar kudos as Cardinal Thomas Wolsey in the 2007 miniseries “The Tudors.”

One of his most notable roles came as thorny foster uncle of New Zealand juvenile delinquent in “Hunt for the Wilderpeople,” a 2016 comedy-adventure by the actor’s Oscar-winning countryman, writer-director Taika Waititi.

Neill took small roles in Waititi’s Marvel installments “Thor: Ragnarok” (2018) and “Thor: Love and Thunder” (2022).

His last screen appearances were in Netflix series “Untamed” and Binge original “The Twelve.”

He was born Nigel John Dermot Neill in Omagh, County Tyrone. He emigrated with his family to Christchurch on the South Island of New Zealand at age seven, and took to calling himself Sam, a handle that stuck professionally.

His principal studies at university were in English.

He said in 2023, “I was pretty silent as a child. I didn’t really want adults to talk to me because I wouldn’t be able to reply. It wasn’t until I got to the age of 14 that the stutter started to go away. And that coincided with getting some som confidence in my life as well.”

He began working on the stage while studying at Canterbury University and moved into acting in New Zealand with TV work and short films before breaking through in Sleeping Dogs.

Neill operated the Two Paddocks winery near his home in Central Otago. He also owned a farm in the region. In 2023, he published “Did I Ever Tell You This?,” a memoir he penned swiftly following his cancer diagnosis.

Neill, who was twice divorced, is survived by his son Tim from marriage to actress Lisa Harrow, his “Omen III” co-star, and his daughter Elena from marriage to makeup artist Noriko Watanabe.

He also adopted Watanabe’s daughter from her first marriage, and had a son in his early 20s who was put up for adoption, but with whom he reunited in 1994.