The Cape Cod director who worked with David Carradine on one of his last films yesterday said the “Kung Fu” actor seemed “normal and upbeat” when he spoke to him a week and a half ago – and he does not believe that Carradine committed suicide.
“It has to be foul play or an accident,” said Dan Adams, who directed the “Kill Bill” star in the 2008 flick “The Golden Boys.” “It’s out of the question, as far as I’m concerned.”
Carradine, 72, was found naked and hanging from a rope in the closet of his luxury Bangkok hotel room Thursday, Thai police said. There was no sign of other people in the room and no sign of assault. An autopsy is underway.
Luanseng Teerapop, the Thai police officer responsible for investigating the death, told The Associated Press police suspect suicide.
Lori Binder, a representative for Carradine’s Los Angeles-based talent manager, said the actor was in Thailand to shoot a film called “Stretch.”
Concerns were raised Wednesday when Carradine failed to appear for a meal with the rest of the film crew and could not be contacted. A hotel maid found the body Thursday morning. A preliminary police report concludes he hanged himself with a cord used for the suite’s curtains, a Thai newspaper reported.
Carradine spent a couple of months on the Cape in 2007 filming Adams’ period comedy “The Golden Boys,” which was originally called “Chatham.” He and co-stars Bruce Dern and Rip Torn played a trio of sea captains who live together in squalor until they decide that one of them must take a bride to care for all three.
Adams, who became good friends with Carradine during the shoot, said he can’t buy the suicide theory for a couple of reasons. First, the actor was extremely devoted to his wife, Annie Bierman, and his two young children.
“Annie was his fifth wife, and in my film he has a bandage on his finger because he promised her he would never take off his wedding ring,” Adams said. “So because his character wasn’t married, we had to cover it with a bandage. It’s never explained in the film, but that’s why.”
Also, Adams said, Carradine had frequently spoken of “working until he couldn’t stand up anymore.”
“He planned to work well into his 80s,” he said. “He was a really positive guy. We even talked about doing some other things together. It’s just a shock that this would happen. I talked to his family members and they are just shocked, too.”
But in his 1995 autobiography “Endless Highway,” Carradine wrote that he tried to kill himself when he was 5 years old.
The book also described his extensive drug use, ranging from LSD to cocaine, and ended with a chronicle of his efforts in the mid-1990s to get sober by attending a support group for alcoholics.
In a 2004 interview the actor revealed that he once considered shooting himself, saying: “Look, there was a period in my life when I had a single-action Colt 45, loaded, in my desk drawer.”
His ex-wife Marina Anderson told RadarOnline that Carradine suffered from depression, but that she did not believe he was suicidal.
Carradine was the son of character actor John Carradine and the half-brother of “Dexter” cop Keith Carradine . He filmed a guest spot in the new Fox series “Mental” that was to air next week but producers are deciding if the episode will go on as scheduled.
