David Carradine dead, aged 72

[stew]

I am sorry to hear of the passing of David Carradine, star of the hit series Kung f* and the hit movie series Kill Bill. I always liked him as an actor and he died aged 72. Bummer.

It gets worse:
BANGKOK - 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."


___


Associated Press writer Polly Anderson in New York contributed to this

[GalwayBayBoy]

Kill Bill star David Carradine found dead in Bangkok

THAI coroners have completed an autopsy on the body of actor David Carradine, a day after the star of the TV show Kung Fu was found naked and hanging dead in his luxury Bangkok hotel room.

Coroners at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn hospital said they had not yet determined the cause of the 72-year-old's death and were waiting for the results of a toxicology screen but police have said he may have died from a sex act gone wrong.

"This certainly was not a natural cause of death," the hospital's chief coroner, Nantana Sirisap, said.

A maid found Carradine hanging naked by a rope in the closet of his hotel suite at the plush Swissotel Nai Lert Park hotel yesterday, police said.

"There was a rope tied around his neck and another rope tied at his sex organ, and the two ropes were tied together and hung in the closet," Lieutenant General Worapong Siewpreecha said.

"Under these circumstances we cannot be sure that he committed suicide but he may have died from masturbation," he said.

.
Police said there was no indication other people had been in the room, where Carradine had stayed during the shooting of a film called Stretch.
They would neither confirm nor deny suggestions that Carradine was attempting auto-erotic asphyxiation, a practice designed to boost sexual pleasure.

Carradine, from a family of performers and the eldest son of character actor John Carradine, enjoyed a long career on Broadway, television and in movies such as director ^ Tarantino's Kill Bill and Kill Bill 2.

While some media reports speculated his death may have been a suicide, a spokeswoman said neither they nor his family believed Carradine was capable of killing himself.

"His family is in shock," Tiffany Smith of Carradine's management firm, said.

"They have the same belief we have. There was no way David did this to himself."

Carradine wrote in his 1995 autobiography Endless Highway that he had tried to kill himself when he was five years old.

The book also documented his alcoholism and extensive use of drugs, from LSD to cocaine.

He was made most famous by his role in the US series Kung Fu where he played Kwai Chang Caine, a half-Asian martial arts specialist, which earned him an Emmy nomination.

The role of Caine led to parts in more than 200 productions and his turn as the villainous Bill in Tarantino's Kill Bill movies led to his fourth Golden Globe nomination.

Carradine was married five times and had two daughters from previous marriages.

Carradine's death has similarities to the death of INXS frontman Michael Hutchence.

Hutchence died at Sydney's Ritz-Carlton hotel in November 1997, with the NSW coroner ruling he had committed suicide.

But some of those closest to him, including his brother, believe he accidentally strangled himself during a sex act .

[ludermor]

"Under these circumstances we cannot be sure that he committed suicide but he may have died from masturbation," he said.

im getting rid of my collection of bailing twine!

[imtommygunn]

That's the way Hutchence went too.

[screenmachine]

Did your man Swinger Fulton our of King Rat's crew not die from the same type of carry on while he was in prison?  In fairness anyone that ties a rope and puts it over there head for the sake of furthered self gratifcation is asking for trouble!  

[GalwayBayBoy]

He only wanted a little stiffy and ended up a big stiffy.

[longrunsthefox]

Tasteless direction this thread taken...

[stew]

As soon as I saw where he had died the thought crossed my mind that it might have been a sex game gone wrong.

[Tony Baloney]

Is it only famous people enjoy strangling themselves whilst enjoying a five knuckle shuffle or do mere civilians indulge in the same behaviour?

[Stalin]

Jesus, I thought it only made you go blind.

[Minder]

What ever happened to getting a good old fashioned dirty mag ?

[dodo]

Bangkok would not be somewhere I'd be heading if I wanted a w**k

[Windmill abu]

Just heard recently that a  supposed 'suicide' a while back in our area was in fact a sex act which went wrong for the poor  fella.

Why put the suicide in quotation marks while the sex act is left as an explanation for their death?

The family of this person has enough to suffer with this untimely death, without having to ignore or justify rumours of the sexual preferances of the deceased

[Main Street]

The film I remember is one he did with his 2 brothers where they played the 3 Younger brothers with Stacy and James Keach playing the 2 James brothers, in a classic brilliant western called "The Long Riders", directed by Walter Hill.