Gunnar Milton Hansen (March 4, 1947 – November 7, 2015) was an Icelandic-born American actor and author best known for playing the mentally impaired cannibal Leatherface in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974).

[5] His first job out of high school was as a computer operator before he began theater work during college.

[citation needed] In 1973, just after finishing graduate school, Hansen heard that The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was being filmed in Austin and decided to audition.

[citation needed] He state that he considered his later acting as a side project and continued to write books.

[8] Hansen died at his home in Northeast Harbor, Maine, of pancreatic cancer on November 7, 2015, at the age of 68.