Actor David Carradine, who starred in the series “Kung Fu” and films such as “Kill Bill,” was found dead in a Bangkok hotel room yesterday from an apparent suicide.
But Carradine’s rep said he believes that the actor’s death was accidental.
MOVIE BLOG: David Carradine (1936-2009)
“We know David. He would never take his own life,” said Chuck Binder, Carradine’s manager.
“I talked to him last week and he was in good spirits,” Binder said. “It’s just shocking.”
The officer responsible for investigating the death, Teerapop Luanseng, said the 72-year-old actor was staying at 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.
The BBC reported that the cord he was hanged with was also wrapped around other parts of his body.
Carradine was working on a film called “Stretch,” in Bangkok, and had not reported to the set Wednesday.
The Nation, a Thai newspaper, reported that 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.
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.
But he was best known for his role as Kwai Chang Caine, a Shaolin priest traveling the 1800s American frontier West in the “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.”
With Post wire services