You are not logged in. Please register or login.
- Topics: Active | Unanswered
Re: Actor David Carradine Found Dead
Kill Bill and Kung Fu star David Carradine has been found dead in a Bangkok hotel room on Thursday.
Thai police told the BBC the 72-year-old was found by a hotel maid sitting in a wardrobe with a cord around his neck and other parts of his body.
The US star was in Thailand filming his latest film, Stretch, according to his personal manager Chuck Binder.
Mr Binder said the news was "shocking", adding: "He was full of life, always wanting to work... a great person."
A US embassy official confirmed the actor's death, but added that the cause of death had not yet been established.
However, Thai newspaper The Nation reported that police believe the actor took his own life, and preliminary investigations found that he hanged himself.
Carradine was part of an acting dynasty which included his father, John Carradine, and brothers Bruce, Keith and Robert.
The star was best known for his role as Kwai Chang Caine in the 1970s TV series Kung Fu, which spawned sequels in the '80s and '90s.
The character became one of the most iconic roles in US TV and earned Carradine both Emmy and Golden Globe nominations.
While his film career saw him working with directors including Martin Scorsese and Ingmar Bergman, the cult actor was considered something of a B-movie legend.
In 2003, after years in the straight-to-video market, Carradine found a new audience thanks to his role in the Quentin Tarantino film Kill Bill.
He was most recently seen on the big screen as a Chinese mobster in Crank: High Voltage, opposite British actor Jason Statham.
Carradine was an accomplished composer, musician, musical performer and songwriter. According to his official website, he was also a sculptor and a painter.
He is survived by his wife, Annie Bierman, and three children including actresses Calista and Kansas.
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/8083479.stm
Re: Actor David Carradine Found Dead
Actor David Carradine found dead in Bangkok
(AP)Source: AP 2 hours, 14 minutes agoBANGKOK - Actor David Carradine, star of the 1970s TV series "Kung Fu" who also had a wide-ranging career in the movies, has been found dead in the Thai capital, Bangkok. A news report said he was found hanged in his hotel room and was believed to have committed suicide.
A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy, Michael Turner, confirmed the death of the 72-year-old actor. He said the embassy was informed by Thai authorities that Carradine died either late Wednesday or early Thursday, but he could not provide further details out of consideration for his family.
The Web site of the Thai newspaper The Nation cited unidentified police sources as saying Carradine was found Thursday hanged in his luxury hotel room.
It said Carradine was in Bangkok to shoot a movie and had been staying at the hotel since Tuesday.
The newspaper said Carradine could not be contacted after he failed to appear for a meal with the rest of the film crew on Wednesday, and that his body was found by a hotel maid at 10 a.m. Thursday morning. The name of the movie was not immediately available.
It said a preliminary police investigation found that he had hanged himself with a cord used with the room's curtains. It cited police as saying he had been dead at least 12 hours and there was no sign that he had been assaulted.
A police officer at Bangkok's Lumpini precinct station would not confirm the identity of the dead man, but said the luxury Swissotel Nai Lert Park hotel had reported that a male guest killed himself there.
Carradine was a leading member of a venerable Hollywood acting family that included his father, character actor John Carradine, and brother Keith.
In all, he appeared in more than 100 feature films with such directors as Martin Scorsese, Ingmar Bergman and Hal Ashby. One of his prominent early film roles was as singer Woody Guthrie in Ashby's 1976 biopic "Bound for Glory."
But he was best known for his role as Kwai Chang Caine, a Shaolin priest traveling the 1800s American frontier West in the TV series "Kung Fu," which aired in 1972-75.
He reprised the role in a mid-1980s TV movie and played Caine's grandson in the 1990s syndicated series "Kung Fu: The Legend Continues."
He returned to the top in recent years as the title character in Quentin Tarantino's two-part saga "Kill Bill."
The character, the worldly father figure of a pack of crack assassins, was a shadowy presence in 2003's "Kill Bill - Vol. 1." In that film, one of Bill's former assassins (Uma Thurman) begins a vengeful rampage against her old associates.
In "Kill Bill - Vol. 2," released in 2004, Thurman's character comes face to face again with Bill himself. The role brought Carradine a Golden Globe nomination as best supporting actor.
Bill was a complete contrast to his TV character Kwai Chang Caine, the soft-spoken refugee from a Shaolin monastery, serenely spreading wisdom and battling bad guys in the Old West. He left after three seasons, saying the show had started to repeat itself.
After "Kung Fu," Carradine starred in the 1975 cult flick "Death Race 2000." He starred with Liv Ullmann in Bergman's "The Serpent's Egg" in 1977 and with his brothers in the 1980 Western "The Long Riders."
But after the early 1980s, he spent two decades doing mostly low-budget films. Tarantino's films changed that.
"All I've ever needed since I more or less retired from studio films a couple of decades ago ... is just to be in one," Carradine told The Associated Press in 2004.
"There isn't anything that Anthony Hopkins or Clint Eastwood or Sean Connery or any of those old guys are doing that I couldn't do," he said. "All that was ever required was somebody with Quentin's courage to take and put me in the spotlight."
One thing remained a constant after "Kung Fu": Carradine's interest in Oriental herbs, exercise and philosophy. He wrote a personal memoir called "Spirit of Shaolin" and continued to make instructional videos on tai chi and other martial arts.
In the 2004 interview, Carradine talked candidly about his past boozing and narcotics use, but said he had put all that behind him and stuck to coffee and cigarettes.
"I didn't like the way I looked, for one thing. You're kind of out of control emotionally when you drink that much. I was quicker to anger."
"You're probably witnessing the last time I will ever answer those questions," Carradine said. "Because this is a regeneration. It is a renaissance. It is the start of a new career for me.
"It's time to do nothing but look forward."
--------------------------
holy crap rip 
- tejastech08
- Rep: 194
Re: Actor David Carradine Found Dead
holy crap rip
What's a crap rip? Is it when you shit and rip your pants at the same time? 
Re: Actor David Carradine Found Dead
Me thinks something else was at hand in his life, that might've been with his health. Strange to commit suicide at 72.
I remember actor Brian Keith committed suicide at the age of 76 I believe, with a gun. But then it was revealed he had found out he had terminal cancer, on top of his daughter OD'ing on drugs not long before that (if I remember correctly).
- monkeychow
- Rep: 661
Re: Actor David Carradine Found Dead
RIP.
I don't know tons of his work but he was great in Kill Bill.
I would suspect it's either health news like you say Axlin08.
Unless the "other parts of his body" is a refrence to auto-erotic asphyxiation gone bad or something like that - but the media would have jumped on that.
In any event, RIP.
Re: Actor David Carradine Found Dead
Carradine's Rep: 'He would never have committed suicide'
June 4, 2009, 10:14 AM EST
MSN Entertainment and AP
Following reports that David Carradine hung himself in his Bankok hotel room, the actor's rep is speaking out, saying that the "Kung Fu" star would never have taken his own life.
Talking to Entertainment tonight, his rep states, "David would never have taken his own life, he would never have committed suicide and the investigation is at the highest level to find out the cause of the death."
Entertainment Tonight also reported that initial autopsy results are expected to be released in two days.
A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Bankok, Michael Turner, confirmed the death of the 72-year-old actor. He said the embassy was informed by Thai authorities that Carradine died either late Wednesday or early Thursday, but he could not provide further details out of consideration for his family.
It said Carradine was in Bangkok to shoot a movie and had been staying at the hotel since Tuesday.
http://tv.msn.com/tv/article.aspx?news=412699>1=28103
This seems to suggest that it wasn't a suicide and there are rumors that it was auto-erotic asphysiaxion gone bad, although that seems to be premature as well.
Whatever the case I enjoyed his role in the two Kill Bill films.
RIP
