Michael Madsen, the rough-and-tumble actor best known for his work in the Quentin Tarantino films Reservoir Dogs, Kill Bill: Vol. 1 & 2, The Hateful Eight and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, died Thursday morning. He was 67.
Madsen was found unresponsive by deputies responding to a 911 call at his Malibu home and pronounced dead at 8:25 a.m., a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department spokesperson told The Hollywood Reporter.
Liz Rodriguez, his rep at EMR Media Entertainment, told THR that “we understand Michael had a cardiac arrest.”
Madsen’s big screen body of work included WarGames (1983), The Natural (1984), The Doors (1991), Thelma & Louise (1991), Free Willy (1993), Species (1995), Donnie Brasco (1997), Die Another Day (2002), Sin City (2005) and Scary Movie 4 (2006).
He has 346 acting credits in IMDb in a career that began in the 1980s.
“Fame is a two-edged sword,” he told THR’s Scott Roxborough in 2018. “There are a lot of blessings but also a lot of heavy things that come with it. I think it has a lot to do with the characters I’ve played. I think I’ve been more believable than I should have been. I think people really fear me. They see me and go: ‘Holy shit, there’s that guy!’
“But I’m not that guy. I’m just an actor. I’m a father, I’ve got seven children. I’m married, I’ve been married 20 years. When I’m not making a movie, I’m home, in pajamas, watching The Rifleman on TV, hopefully with my 12-year-old making me a cheeseburger. I sure as hell had my rabble-rousing days, but sooner or later you have to get over that and move on.”
Many of his more recent films were forgettable.
“Well, sometimes people forget that sometimes you have to pay the mortgage, sometimes you have to put your kids through school,” he said. “You can’t always pick the greatest script. And you pick a project you probably shouldn’t be involved in and then you have to live with it all your life.”
Hilary Lewis contributed to this report.
More to come …
