The actor Michael Madsen has died aged 67 at his home in Malibu, according to authorities and his representatives. No foul play is suspected, the sheriff’s department confirmed, after deputies responded to the Los Angeles county home following a call to the emergency services on Thursday morning.
He was pronounced dead at 8.25am. In an email, Madsen’s manager, Ron Smith, confirmed his client had died from cardiac arrest.
A statement from Smith and another manager, Susan Ferris, along with publicist Liz Rodriguez said:
“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.
“Michael was also preparing to release a new book called Tears for My Father: Outlaw Thoughts and Poems, currently being edited. Michael Madsen was one of Hollywood’s most iconic actors, who will be missed by many.”
Madsen in Reservoir Dogs (1992). Photograph: Cinetext/Rank/Allstar
Over a four-decade career, Madsen had won acclaim for his portrayals of often enigmatic and frequently wise-cracking tough guys in films including Kill Bill: Vol. 1, Reservoir Dogs, Thelma & Louise and Donnie Brasco.
He also features in later Tarantino films including The Hateful Eight and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Other credits among the 346 listed on IMDb include The Doors, Free Willy, Species, Die Another Day, Sin City and Scary Movie 4.
Madsen began his career in Chicago as part of the Steppenwolf Theatre company as as apprentice to John Malkovich before debuting on the big screen in the 1983 sci-fi WarGames. His global breakthrough came in 1994 when he played the menacing criminal Mr Blonde in Tarantino’s feature debut, Reservoir Dogs.
Madsen’s performance won acclaim for its fleet-footed menace and unreadable joviality – despite the actor originally desiring the part of Mr Pink,(eventually played by Steve Buscemi), because it featured more scenes alongside his hero Harvey Keitel.
Despite teaming up with Tarantino again for Kill Bill: Vol. 1 11 years later, Madsen missed out on a number of significant film roles that might have expanded the scope of his career, including the leads in LA Confidential and Natural Born Killers.
Speaking to the Guardian in 2004, he expressed frustration with some fellow film-makers for passing him over for parts, as well as with what he perceived as a wider lack of care within the industry.
Madsen in Donnie Brasco (1997). Photograph: TRISTAR/Allstar
“When I was really down and out,” he said, “and I was just ready to flatline, you would think that an element of Hollywood would try to hold you up, just keep you going. I mean, everybody pretty much knows that I’m a father. A lot of people have made a lot of money with me involved in their projects, so if only for that reason. But no – nothing was happening.”
Madsen also ascribed the “patchiness” of his career to a being a man out of time. “Maybe I was just born in the wrong era,” he said. “I’m a bit of a throwback to the days of black-and-white movies. Those guys back then, they had a certain kind of directness about them. A lot of the screenplays, the plots were very simplistic – they gave rise to a type of antihero that maybe I suit better.”
The actor also said he felt more at home with traditional male pursuits than in performance. “All the putting on makeup and dressing up in clothes,’ he says. ‘And you got to be a bit self-centred to pull it off. I guess it’s just the way I was brought up. For me, it’s more masculine to dig ditches or drive a tow truck.”
The brother of actor Virginia Madsen, he was married three times and had seven children, one of whom pre-deceased him.
Virginia Madsen paid tribute to her older brother on Thursday with a statement to Variety. The two mutually supported their careers over the years, often attending each other’s red carpets.
“My brother Michael has left the stage,” Virginia wrote. “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.
“We’re not mourning a public figure,” she continued. “We’re not mourning a myth – but flesh and blood and ferocious heart. Who stormed through life loud, brilliant, and half on fire. Who leaves us echoes – gruff, brilliant, unrepeatable – half legend, half lullaby.”
“I’ll miss our inside jokes, the sudden laughter, the sound of him. I’ll miss the boy he was before the legend; I miss my big brother,” she concluded. “In time, we’ll share how we plan to celebrate his life – but for now, we stay close, and let the silence say what words can’t.”