Michael Madsen, the rough-and-tumble actor best known for his work in the Quentin Tarantino films Reservoir Dogs, Kill Bill: Vol. 1 & 2, The Hateful Eight and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, died Thursday morning. He was 67.
Madsen was found unresponsive by deputies responding to a 911 call at his Malibu home and pronounced dead at 8:25 a.m., a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department spokesperson told The Hollywood Reporter.
Liz Rodriguez, his rep at EMR Media Entertainment, told THR “we understand Michael had a cardiac arrest.”
Madsen’s official bio notes that he “balanced intensity with introspection … whether delivering chilling dialogue or quietly capturing a moment behind the camera, his commitment to storytelling remained constant. He brought both edge and soul to every role, and his enduring influence on American cinema is undeniable.”
His big screen body of work included WarGames (1983), The Natural (1984), The Doors (1991), Thelma & Louise (1991), Free Willy (1993), Species (1995), Donnie Brasco (1997), Die Another Day (2002), Sin City (2005) and Scary Movie 4 (2006).
He has 346 acting credits in IMDb in a career that began in the 1980s.
“Fame is a two-edged sword,” he told THR’s Scott Roxborough in 2018. “There are a lot of blessings but also a lot of heavy things that come with it. I think it has a lot to do with the characters I’ve played. I think I’ve been more believable than I should have been. I think people really fear me. They see me and go: ‘Holy shit, there’s that guy!’
“But I’m not that guy. I’m just an actor. I’m a father, I’ve got seven children. I’m married, I’ve been married 20 years. When I’m not making a movie, I’m home, in pajamas, watching The Rifleman on TV, hopefully with my 12-year-old making me a cheeseburger. I sure as hell had my rabble-rousing days, but sooner or later you have to get over that and move on.”
Many of his more recent films were forgettable.
“Well, sometimes people forget that sometimes you have to pay the mortgage, sometimes you have to put your kids through school,” he said. “You can’t always pick the greatest script. And you pick a project you probably shouldn’t be involved in and then you have to live with it all your life.”
Madsen was born in Chicago on Sept. 25, 1957. His father, Calvin, was a firefighter with the Chicago Fire Department, and his mother, Elaine, was an author who also won an Emmy in 1983 for producing the documentary Better Than It Has to Be, about the history of filmmaking in the Windy City. His folks divorced in the 1960s.
He began his career at the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago, where he learned from John Malkovich and appeared in Of Mice and Men. In 1982, he appeared in two episodes of NBC’s St. Elsewhere, then played a cop in WarGames, directed by John Badham.
In Tarantino’s directorial debut film, Reservoir Dogs (1992), Madsen portrayed the ultra-cruel Mr. Blonde. He said he really wanted to play Mr. Pink because that character had more lines with the veteran Harvey Keitel, but Steve Buscemi got that part. It was Mr. Blonde or nothing, Tarantino told him.
“I had never met Quentin before,” he told The Independent in a 2016 interview. “I walked in the room at the 20th Century Fox lot and he was standing there with his arms folded, Harvey sitting on the couch in bare feet.” He did get to cut off a cop’s ear in the movie.
For Tarantino’s follow-up, Pulp Fiction (1994), Madsen declined the role of Vincent Vega, which went to John Travolta. Madsen instead starred as the mobster Sonny Black in the crime film Donnie Brasco, directed by Mike Newell.
Hilary Lewis contributed to this report.
More to come …
