very thoughtful daniel.
he didn’t exactly hang himself lol. can’t believe they’re telling everyone those details honestly. rip though
I haven’t seen much of his work besides Kill Bill and Crank 2 (he had an awesome role in that) but may he rest in peace anyways, much respect.
Dylan, he is probably best known for his role in the show Kung Fu. Maybe it was a little before your time…don’t know how old you are.
Boxcar Bertha
As Frankenstein in Deathrace 2000.
i’m young (29) so i don’t know him from Kung Fu, only Kill Bill, but i did enjoy Bound For Glory, which i thought was a good biopic. its a shocking, upsetting loss. he’s one of the great ones. let us remember him well, warts and all.
Carradine came from an unsual ethnic mix; Welsh, Irish, Scottish, English, Ukrainian, Cherokee, Spanish, Italian and German. The TV series Kung Fu in which he played a Shaolin priest named Kwai Chang Caine got my wife interested enough to take up karate in the 70s. She then wanted to go to China to visit the Shaolin monks and also because she had liked the look of it in the film Inn of the Sixth Happiness. We later booked to go to China but she was ill and we missed the chance and the money was gone with it. It turned out that the China of the film was actually in a part of North Wales we’ve often visited and love anyway, and the monks came to Brittany when we were there so she got to meet some and see their martial arts demonstration after all. These things have a strange way of turning out, perhaps there might be a lesson the old monk in Kung Fu could teach “grasshopper” from it, but if it weren’t for David Carradine something valuable in our lives would have been lost.
In Kung Fu, DC is called grasshopper by his old blind mentor, Master Po, after this exchange:
Master Po: Close your eyes. What do you hear?
Young Caine: I hear the water, I hear the birds.
Po: Do you hear your own heartbeat?
Caine: No.
Po: Do you hear the grasshopper that is at your feet?
Caine: Old man, how is it that you hear these things?
Po: Young man, how is it that you do not?
Thanks for posting this Daniel & Kenji.
I grew up with Kung Fu, it was on TV every afternoon when I was a kid.
I didn’t miss a single episode.
Also father of Keith Carradine who has been in Nashville, Street of No Return, Trouble in Mind, Thieves Like Us, and other films.
From what I know Justin, he is the half-brother of Keith Carradine and not his father…
He was great in Bound for Glory
Really? Okay.
I actually only saw him in Kill Bill, but he is definitely one of the primary reasons why Volume 2 surpasses Volume 1 for me.
Yes,David and Keith are brothers; both sons of John Carradine.
Day before he died…for some reason…I watched his death scene in Kill Bill 2 on Youtube.
Dying in a closet in a Bangkok hotel with a rope around his neck and another around his penis. What can be said? Paging Park Chan-wook!
Casey, that is strange. It would have made me feel strange.
Bless his soul.
Anyone remember him from Scorsese’s BOXCAR BERTHA,opposite John Carradine and the young, naked Barbara Hershey!
How ’bout the bizarre SONNY BOY from the late ’80s, where he appeared in a dress?
He was in an Ingmar Bergman film too: The Serpent’s Egg.
Was he a “great actor”? That seems to be stretching things a bit.
We need Kenneth Anger in Hollywood Bablyon III to explain to us the grisly details of Carradine’s death — and what he was doing living in Bangkok in the first place. Isn’t that where John Mark Karr took up residence?
How is that stretching things a bit. We are talking about the star of Kung Fu, a show that everyone is familiar with. Think about his presence, his voice…unmistakable. He is a one-of-a-kind actor like Jack Nicholson that we could not imagine the world of filmmaking without him. And Justin…please don’t tell me that YOU are going to decide the greatness of David Carradine? That would be taking things waaaay to far man. This thread was meant for people to leave kind words for the deceased actor. Not to determine his greatness or lack of.
Walter Hill’s The Long Riders , about the James-Younger gang, is a stand-out in Carradine’s career, but has been strangely overlooked: it included David and his brothers Keith and Robert, as well as the Keach and the Quaid brothers, and even Christopher Guest and his brother. Fantastic stunt riding, shot in slo-mo…
Then you might not even have put the word “great” in the title if it’s as a human being that you want to mourn him. Does it really matter all that much when someone’s dead if he was a tv star or a bricklayer? At least we can all objectively agree when someone is a great bricklayer — their buildings don’t fall down.
I’m much sadder about the doctor who was gunned down by a religious fanatic last week who thought he was performing a mission from God.
That was sad, Justin.
Daniel Purcell
I couldn’t believe it when I read it. “Bill” is gone forever. My hat is off to you, sir. One of the greatest actors of our lifetime, we salute you in death. May the life you lived live on in your films. And may you rest in peace, sir…for you have earned it. I know that this world can be very confusing and cruel. And your passing is a warning to all of us that fame doesn’t create joy in life. May we all seek to find true happiness whether we are famous or unnoticed, may we seek to find the source of life instead of forfeiting our souls on things we don’t need, may we take your passing seriously and ponder its wisdom to us. God bless you and may God give your existing family peace, mercy, and love to carry on.