Gunnar Hansen
Gunnar Milton Hansen (March 4, 1947 – November 7, 2015) was an Icelandic-born American actor and author. He is best known for playing Leatherface, the masked killer, in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974). He was born in Reykjavík to Skúli Hansen, a dentist, and Sigrid Hansen, who was Norwegian. He moved to the United States with his mother and brother when he was five, lived in Maine until he was eleven, and then moved to Austin, Texas. He attended Austin High School and the University of Texas at Austin, where he studied English and mathematics and later pursued graduate studies in Scandinavian Studies and English.
His first job after high school was as a computer operator, and he did theater during college. He also played football in high school and worked as a bar bouncer for a time. In 1973, after learning that The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was being filmed in Austin, he auditioned and landed the role of Leatherface.
After years of writing for magazines and books, Hansen returned to acting in 1988 with a role in Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers and went on to appear in about 20 films, including Texas Chainsaw 3D. He viewed acting as a side project and continued writing books, film scripts, and directing documentaries. His final film project was a cameo in Death House, which he co-wrote.
As an author, Hansen wrote Islands at the Edge of Time: A Journey to America's Barrier Islands (1993) and Chain Saw Confidential (2013), a book about the making and reception of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. He died of pancreatic cancer at his home in Northeast Harbor, Maine, on November 7, 2015, at the age of 68. He was cremated and his ashes were scattered into the ocean.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 08:46 (CET).