Hollywood actor Michael Madsen, who starred in Reservoir Dogs and Kill Bill, dies aged 67
by Flaminia Luck · LBCBy Flaminia Luck
Hollywood actor Michael Madsen - who starred in Reservoir Dogs and Kill Bill - has died at the age of 67.
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The 'tough guy's tough guy', famous for his roles in Quentin Tarantino films and a Hollywood icon since the 1980s, is believed to have died from a cardiac arrest.
A spokesperson for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said deputies responded to a 911 call at the actor’s home in Malibu, California, on Thursday morning.
He was found unresponsive and pronounced dead at 8:25am.
Madsen Madsen's career spanned more than 300 credits stretching back to the early 1980s, many in low-budget films.
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But his most memorable screen moment may have been the sadistic torture of a captured police officer - while dancing to Stealers Wheel's Stuck In The Middle With You - as Mr Blonde in 1992's Reservoir Dogs.
He would become a Tarantino regular, appearing in the Kill Bill films and The Hateful Eight, and usually featuring as a charismatic, menacing character.
Madsen was born in Chicago in 1957. His father served in the US Navy during the Second World War, and his mother worked as a filmmaker.
During a handprint ceremony at the TCL Chinese Theatre in November 2020, Madsen reflected on his first visit to Hollywood in the early 1980s.
"I got out and I walked around and I looked and I wondered if there were some day some way that that was going to be a part of me.
"And I didn't know because I didn't know what I was going to do at that point with myself," he said.
"I could have been a bricklayer. I could have been an architect. I could have been a garbage man. I could have been nothing. But I got lucky. I got lucky as an actor."
His sister Virginia is also an actor, known for her role in Sideways for which she was nominated for an Oscar and a Golden Globe.
"My brother Michael has left the stage," Virginia wrote in a statement to Variety.
"He was thunder and velvet. Mischief wrapped in tenderness. A poet disguised as an outlaw. A father, a son, a brother - etched in contradiction, tempered by love that left its mark."
"In the last two years Michael Madsen has been doing some incredible work with independent film including upcoming feature films Resurrection Road, Concessions and Cookbook For Southern Housewives, and was really looking forward to this next chapter in his life," his managers Smith and Susan Ferris and publicist Liz Rodriguez said in a statement.
They added that he "was one of Hollywood's most iconic actors, who will be missed by many".