(CNN)Actor John Hurt, the gravelly voiced British actor who garnered Oscar nominations for his roles in "Midnight Express" and "The Elephant Man," has died at the age of 77, publicist Charles McDonald said Friday.

McDonald offered no other details of Hurt's passing.

Known for playing tormented characters, Hurt memorably died on screen in the 1979 space adventure "Alien" when a creature exploded from his chest during lunch in the spacecraft mess hall. CNN's "The Screening Room" in 2007 ranked it among its Top 10 favorite movie deaths.

Hurt always stayed busy, working more than six decades in television, movies and voice work in England and the United States. He recently played a priest who counsels Jacqueline Kennedy in last year's biopic "Jackie," according to IMDb.

"I'm very much of the opinion that to work is better than not to work," he said, according to his IMDb bio. "There are others who'd say, 'No, wait around for the right thing' - and they will finish up a purer animal than me. ... Of course, I don't do everything by any means: I do turn lots of stuff down, because it's absolute crap. But I usually find something interesting enough to do."

Accolades poured in on social media...

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