David Carradine’s death was believed to be a suicide when he was found hanging by the neck in a closet in his Bangkok hotel room by a maid.
But the actor’s manager refuses to believe it. “I can tell you 100 percent that he would have never committed suicide,” says Tiffany Smith, who managed the star along with Chuck Binder. “He was too full of life.”
In a statement, Carradine’s niece, actress Martha Plimpton, expressed the family’s sense of loss. “My Uncle David was a brilliantly talented, fiercely intelligent and generous man,” Plimpton said.
“He was the nexus of our family in so many ways, and drew us together over the years and kept us connected. I adored him as a child, and as an adult I admired and respected him. We will all miss him terribly.”
Carradine, 72, of the Kill Bill fame, was in Thailand filming the movie Stretch when his body was discovered Thursday morning. “I can confirm that we found his body, naked, hanging in the closet,” Lt. Teerapop Luanseng tells the Associated Press. He said police suspected suicide, according to AP.
Carradine had spoken openly of his past battles with drugs and alcohol and thoughts of suicide. But his manager says the actor had been in good spirits. He was not only very eager to work on the current film, but he also had three more lined up when he returned to the United States.
“We are not saying it’s an accidental death because we don’t know,” says Smith. “Right now we are just letting everyone know that it’s under investigation and we’ll see … I just know he didn’t do this to himself.”
