Film & Media · Ouderkerk aan de Amstel and Amsterdam
Dutch actor Maarten Spanjer, known for Spetters and Taxi, dies aged 73
Spanjer died in a hospice in Ouderkerk aan de Amstel in the night from Friday 16 to Saturday 17 October 2026, his partner Monique Waterham told ANP. He had been treated for bladder and prostate cancer since it was diagnosed in 2025.
In brief
Spanjer, 73, died in the night from Friday 16 to Saturday 17 October 2026 in a hospice in Ouderkerk aan de Amstel, with his partner Monique Waterham present.
Bladder and prostate cancer was diagnosed in 2025, and a far-reaching operation removed his bladder and prostate.
From late August 2026 he wrote weekly columns for De Telegraaf about his experiences as a patient.
He became known for his role in Spetters (1980) directed by Paul Verhoeven, and for the television programme Taxi, which drew around three million viewers a week in the 1990s.
- 2025Bladder and prostate cancer diagnosed
- May 2025Tells De Telegraaf that death is not yet close
- Late August 2026Interview in De Telegraaf and start of weekly columns
- Night of 16 to 17 October 2026Dies in a hospice in Ouderkerk aan de Amstel, aged 73
Career
Spanjer became known to a wide public through Spetters (1980), the Paul Verhoeven film in which he played Hans, a motocross rider and one of three young friends who fall for snack bar owner Fientje, played by Renée Soutendijk. Younger viewers knew him as Gerben Zonderland in the first two Kameleon films, based on the children's book series by Hotze de Roos. In the 1990s he had success with the television programme Taxi, in which he posed as a taxi driver and struck up conversations with passengers recorded on a hidden camera. According to Het Parool he was born in Amsterdam in 1952. In later years he concentrated more on writing, with books such as Spanjer in stukken and Geluk is een herinnering, which looked back on his youth around the Retiefstraat in Amsterdam-Oost.
Illness and columns
Bladder and prostate cancer was diagnosed in 2025, and Spanjer initially kept the illness private. A far-reaching operation removed his bladder and prostate. From late August 2026 he wrote weekly columns for De Telegraaf about his experiences as a patient, and in the first one he wrote that the thought 'why me?' was taboo for him.
Final weeks
Asked in May 2025 whether death was close, he told De Telegraaf that it was not yet there.
“No, we are not there yet, but now and then I do look back over my shoulder.”
That summer he said he felt good, though he had less energy, and at the end of August he told the same paper he was not afraid of the end. He had always seen life as a strange joke, he said, and one should make the best of it.
According to his partner Monique Waterham, who was with him in the hospice, his condition declined very quickly over the last two weeks.
“There were suddenly new, enormous metastases with major consequences. He could no longer go on, Maarten was spent.”
Death
Spanjer died in the night from Friday 16 to Saturday 17 October 2026 in a hospice in Ouderkerk aan de Amstel, with Waterham present. He was 73. Waterham confirmed the death to ANP after De Telegraaf reported it. Spanjer had also written about his illness in the weekly columns that continued to appear in the paper in the weekend before his death.