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Actor David Carradine found dead in Bangkok



By GRANT PECK, Associated Press Writer Grant Peck, Associated Press Writer – 6 JUN 09

BANGKOK – Actor David Carradine, a born seeker and cult idol who broke through as the willing student called "grasshopper" in the 1970s TV series "Kung Fu" and decades later as leader of an assassin squad in "Kill Bill," was found dead Thursday in Thailand. Police said he appeared to have hanged himself.

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The officer responsible for investigating the death, Lt. Teerapop Luanseng, said the 72-year-old actor had been staying in a suite at the luxury Swissotel Nai Lert Park Hotel.

"I can confirm that we found his body, naked, hanging in the closet," Teerapop said. He said police suspected suicide.

A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy, Michael Turner, said the embassy was informed by Thai authorities that Carradine died either late Wednesday or early Thursday. "We send our heartfelt condolences to his family and his loved ones," he said.

Carradine came from an acting family. His father, John, made a career playing creepy, eccentric characters in film and on stage. His brothers Keith, Robert and Bruce also became actors. Actress Martha Plimpton is Keith Carradine's daughter.

"My Uncle David was a brilliantly talented, fiercely intelligent and generous man. He was the nexus of our family in so many ways, and drew us together over the years and kept us connected," Plimpton said Thursday.

Carradine was "in good spirits" when he left the U.S. for Thailand on May 29 to work on the movie "Stretch," said Tiffany Smith of Binder & Associates, his managers.

"David was excited to do it and excited to be a part of it," she said by phone from Beverly Hills, noting that Carradine was the sole featured American in the movie, whose other top cast members were French and Chinese. "When he was on a set he was in heaven."

Filming on the thriller by French director Charles de Meaux began Tuesday, she said, adding that the crew was devastated by Carradine's death and did not wish to speak publicly about it for the time being.

"It is shocking to me that he is no longer with us," said Michael Madsen, who played an assassin in "Kill Bill."

"I have so many great memories of David that I wouldn't even know where to begin," he said. "He has a very special place in my heart."

The Web site of the Thai newspaper The Nation 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 Thursday morning. It said a preliminary police investigation found that he had hanged himself with a cord used with the suite's curtains and that there was no sign that he had been assaulted.

Police said Carradine's body was taken to a hospital for an autopsy that would be done Friday.

Carradine appeared in more than 100 feature films with such directors as Martin Scorsese, Ingmar Bergman and Hal Ashby. One of his early film roles was as folk 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.

"I wasn't like a TV star in those days, I was like a rock 'n' roll star," Carradine said in an interview with Associated Press Radio in 1996. "It was a phenomenon kind of thing. ... It was very special."

Actor Rainn Wilson, star of TV's "The Office," tweeted about Carradine's death on Twitter: "R.I.P. David Carradine. You were a true hero to so many of us children of the 70s. We'll miss you, Kwai Chang Caine."

Carradine 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." Bill, 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, including Bill.

In "Kill Bill — Vol. 2," released in 2004, Thurman's character catches up to Bill. The role brought Carradine a Golden Globe nomination as best supporting actor.

Bill was a complete contrast to 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.

"David's always been kind of a seeker of knowledge and of wisdom in his own inimitable way," his brother, actor Keith Carradine, said in a 1995 interview.

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 Asian 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."

Comments

  • jeffcbayjeffcbay Posts: 8,950 ✭✭✭✭
    I wonder if he died from the Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique...

    R.I.P. Bill...
  • alnavmanalnavman Posts: 4,129 ✭✭✭
    wow, doesn't it seem unusual that many martial arts folks end up dying under tragic circumstances...
  • PoppaJPoppaJ Posts: 2,818
    R.I.P. Grasshopper!
  • MBMiller25MBMiller25 Posts: 6,057 ✭✭


    << <i>Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique... >>



    LOL, Classic!
  • RobbRobb Posts: 2,034


    << <i>

    << <i>Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique... >>



    LOL, Classic! >>



    Considering the speculation of erotic asphyxiation.
    imageRIP
  • BunchOBullBunchOBull Posts: 6,188 ✭✭✭
    Other than those being terminally ill, I find it strange when a person makes it so long and decides to end their own life. Tragic.

    RIP.
    Collector of most things Frank Thomas. www.BigHurtHOF.com
  • nightcrawlernightcrawler Posts: 5,110 ✭✭
    Very sad news. RIP David. image
  • storm888storm888 Posts: 11,701 ✭✭✭

    image
    Folks Who Bite Get Bitten. Folks Who Don't Bite Get Eaten.
  • We're on the train to Bangkok...along the Thailand express..
    We'll hit the stops along the way..we'll only stop for the best !
  • hope he is happy now....poor guy
  • pandrewspandrews Posts: 7,598 ✭✭✭
    RIP.
    ·p_A·
  • wolfbearwolfbear Posts: 2,759 ✭✭✭


    image

    If a feather of the duck becomes the left eye of the gnat,

    does not the silence of the braying donkey make mischief of the monkey's pilgrimage

    ... asshopper?
    Pix of 'My Kids'

    "How about a little fire Scarecrow ?"
  • rbdjr1rbdjr1 Posts: 4,474 ✭✭

    Kung Fu, the TV series was one of my all-time favorites! a Shaolin Priest in the "olde west", ... like in Dodge City, wow! image

    He was sooooooooo cool!

    RIP!

    rd

    imageimage

  • Nathaniel1960Nathaniel1960 Posts: 2,327 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Seriously, I would have been surprised if he had gone out ANY OTHER WAY. A dingy Bangkok hotel, mysterious circumstances, smell of opium wafting through the air, a baby's cry, a moped horn...silence.
    Kiss me once, shame on you.
    Kiss me twice.....let's party.
  • mtcardsmtcards Posts: 3,340 ✭✭✭
    One Night In Bangkok
    Murray Head
    Music & Lyrics : Benny Anderson - Tim Rice - Bjsrn Ulvaeus

    THE AMERICAN:
    Bangkok, Oriental setting
    And the city don't know that the city is getting
    The creme de la creme of the chess world in a
    Show with everything but Yul Brynner

    Time flies -- doesn't seem a minute
    Since the Tirolean spa had the chess boys in it
    All change -- don't you know that when you
    Play at this level there's no ordinary venue

    It's Iceland -- or the Philippines -- or Hastings -- or --
    or this place!

    COMPANY:
    One night in Bangkok and the world's your oyster
    The bars are temples but the pearls ain't free
    You'll find a god in every golden cloister
    And if you're lucky then the god's a she
    I can feel an angel sliding up to me

    THE AMERICAN:
    One town's very like another
    When your head's down over your pieces, brother

    COMPANY:
    It's a drag, it's a bore, it's really such a pity
    To be looking at the board, not looking at the city

    THE AMERICAN:
    Whaddya mean? Ya seen one crowded, polluted, stinking town --

    COMPANY:
    Tea, girls, warm, sweet
    Some are set up in the Somerset Maugham suite

    THE AMERICAN:
    Get Thai'd! You're talking to a tourist
    Whose every move's among the purest
    I get my kicks above the waistline, sunshine

    COMPANY:
    One night in Bangkok makes a hard man humble
    Not much between despair and ecstasy
    One night in Bangkok and the tough guys tumble
    Can't be too careful with your company
    I can feel the devil walking next to me

    THE AMERICAN:
    Siam's gonna be the witness
    To the ultimate test of cerebral fitness
    This grips me more than would a
    Muddy old river or reclining Buddha

    And thank God I'm only watching the game -- controlling it --

    I don't see you guys rating
    The kind of mate I'm contemplating
    I'd let you watch, I would invite you
    But the queens we use would not excite you

    So you better go back to your bars, your temples, your massage
    parlours --

    COMPANY:
    One night in Bangkok and the world's your oyster
    The bars are temples but the pearls ain't free
    You'll find a god in every golden cloister
    A little flesh, a little history
    I can feel an angel sliding up to me

    One night in Bangkok makes a hard man humble
    Not much between despair and ecstasy
    One night in Bangkok and the tough guys tumble
    Can't be too careful with your company
    I can feel the devil walking next to me
    IT IS ALWAYS CHEAPER TO NOT SELL ON EBAY
  • stevekstevek Posts: 29,951 ✭✭✭✭✭
    <<< t said Carradine was in Bangkok to shoot a movie and had been staying at the hotel since Tuesday. >>>

    So ya sign a movie deal, travel to Bangkok, and then hang yourself?
  • rbdjr1rbdjr1 Posts: 4,474 ✭✭


    << <i>Seriously, I would have been surprised if he had gone out ANY OTHER WAY. A dingy Bangkok hotel, mysterious circumstances, smell of opium wafting through the air, a baby's cry, a moped horn...silence. >>


    A dingy Bangkok hotel?

    Nope! But a luxury 5-star Bangkok hotel, with film crew members waiting for David Carradine to join them to eat? Sounds a bit fishy to me? Maybe he was still using drugs (...as it was well-known Carradine was a long time narcotics and alcohol abuser) and just maybe, was literally "stoned out of his mind"?

    Very weird stuff indeed!

    rd

    image
  • RobbRobb Posts: 2,034
    Um... guys... erotic asphyxiation...
    imageRIP
  • wolfbearwolfbear Posts: 2,759 ✭✭✭

    Yeah ... like Michael Hutchence, lead singer of INXS ....

    Pix of 'My Kids'

    "How about a little fire Scarecrow ?"
  • BunchOBullBunchOBull Posts: 6,188 ✭✭✭


    << <i>Um... guys... erotic asphyxiation... >>



    In that case, the "hired help" got the heck out of Dodge, or he's doing things I didn't know 72 year olds would still have an interest in doing with their alone time.
    Collector of most things Frank Thomas. www.BigHurtHOF.com
  • NickMNickM Posts: 4,895 ✭✭✭
    Bunch - would you expect hired help to stick around longer than it takes to find his wallet?

    Nick
    image
    Reap the whirlwind.

    Need to buy something for the wife or girlfriend? Check out Vintage Designer Clothing.
  • RonBurgundyRonBurgundy Posts: 5,491 ✭✭✭
    One night in Bangkok makes a hard man humble...............
    Ron Burgundy

    Buying Vintage, all sports.
    Buying Woody Hayes, Les Horvath, Vic Janowicz, and Jesse Owens autographed items
  • rbdjr1rbdjr1 Posts: 4,474 ✭✭

    Its getting weirder! Police say Carradine was handing nude in a hotel closet, with rope around his neck and also rope tied around his "family jewels"? OMG! Yikes!

    By MICHAEL CASEY, Associated Press Writer Michael Casey, Associated Press Writer

    BANGKOK – The body of American actor David Carradine, best known for the 1970s TV series "Kung Fu," was found in a hotel room closet with a rope tied to his neck and genitals, and his death may have been caused by accidental suffocation, Thai police said Friday.

    The 72-year-old actor's body was discovered Thursday in his luxury suite at Bangkok's Swissotel Nai Lert Park Hotel. Police initially said they suspected suicide, though Carradine's associates had questioned that theory.

    Police Lt. Gen. Worapong Chewprecha told reporters that Carradine was found with a rope tied around his genitals and another rope around his neck.

    "The two ropes were tied together," he said. "It is unclear whether he committed suicide or not or he died of suffocation or heart failure."

    Thai police completed an autopsy on Carradine on Friday. But Police Col. Somprasong Yenthuam, superintendent of the Lumpini police station, which is handling the case, said results would not be ready for at least three weeks because the cause of death was unclear. He called the time lag "normal."

    Dr. Nanthana Sirisap, director of Chulalongkorn Hospital's Autopsy Center, told reporters that the autopsy was conducted because of the "unusual circumstances surrounding Carradine's death," but did not elaborate.

    Police Lt. Teerapop Luanseng had said Thursday that Carradine's body was found "naked, hanging in a closet," and that police at the time suspected suicide.

    But one of Carradine's managers dismissed the theory.

    "All we can say is, we know David would never have committed suicide," said Tiffany Smith of Binder & Associates, his management company. "We're just waiting for them to finish the investigation and find out what really happened. He really appreciated everything life has to give ... and that's not something David would ever do to himself."

    Carradine had flown to Thailand last week and began work on a film titled "Stretch" two days before his death, Smith said. He had several other projects lined up after the action film, which was being directed by Charles De Meaux.

    Carradine was in good spirits when he left the U.S. for Thailand on May 29 to work on "Stretch," Smith said.

    "David was excited to do it and excited to be a part of it," she said by phone from Beverly Hills.

    Filming began Tuesday, she said, adding that the crew was devastated by Carradine's death and did not wish to speak publicly about it for the time being.

    Aurelio Giraudo, the hotel's general manager, said Carradine checked into the hotel May 31 and he last saw him June 3. He said Carradine chatted with staff and even played piano a few nights in the lobby as well as flute which the "guests really enjoyed."

    "I was a fan. I had a very nice talk with him when he checked in," Giraudo told The Associated Press. "He was very much a person full of life. I mentioned to him that I had seen (the movie) "Crank" with my family and that was the last smile he gave me."

    Giraudo said a chambermaid discovered Carradine's body, adding that she knocked and entered after there was no response. Police arrived shortly thereafter.

    Somprasong said there was no evidence there was anyone else in the room at the time of Carradine's death.

    Carradine, a martial arts practitioner himself, was best known for the U.S. TV series "Kung Fu," which aired in 1972-75. He played Kwai Chang Caine, an orphan who was raised by Shaolin monks and fled China after killing the emperor's nephew in retaliation for the murder of his kung fu master.

    Carradine also appeared in more than 100 feature films with such directors as Martin Scorsese, Ingmar Bergman and Hal Ashby.

    He returned to the top in recent years as the title character in Quentin Tarantino's two-part saga "Kill Bill." Bill, 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, including Bill.
  • BunchOBullBunchOBull Posts: 6,188 ✭✭✭


    << <i>Um... guys... erotic asphyxiation... >>



    A confirmed winner...the life of a thrill seeking addict.
    Collector of most things Frank Thomas. www.BigHurtHOF.com
  • BunchOBullBunchOBull Posts: 6,188 ✭✭✭


    << <i>Bunch - would you expect hired help to stick around longer than it takes to find his wallet?

    Nick >>



    I wonder if his wallet was empty when they found him...sounds like the police in Thailand are idiots.
    Collector of most things Frank Thomas. www.BigHurtHOF.com
  • DrJDrJ Posts: 2,213
    RIP. Though it sounds like a Kinky escapade might have gone wrong.
  • CDsNutsCDsNuts Posts: 10,092
    Pleasuring oneself should not be that complicated. Free internet porn is plentisome.
  • ResRes Posts: 1,086
    Looks like he was playing with one of those infamous Thai hookers. His hands were tied behind his back.
  • StingrayStingray Posts: 8,843 ✭✭✭
    Another death just like the dude from INXS??
  • this is what happens when you let senior citizens use viagra.
  • OAKESY25OAKESY25 Posts: 4,726 ✭✭✭
    this is what happens when you let senior citizens use viagra.

    and rope
  • tunahead08tunahead08 Posts: 1,063 ✭✭✭
    Well at least he died happy, and not because he was depressed or something
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