DAVID CARRADINE NU ERA SINUCIGAS!STAREA SA ERA FOARTE BUNA

Quentin Tarantino, Michael Madsen and Rob Schneider all told U.S. talk show host Larry King there was no way the actor would have killed himself.

'I am still in a state shock. He was a dream to direct he was a fantastic actor, a great character actor and really one of Hollywood's great mad geniuses,' said Tarantino, who directed Carradine in Kill Bill.

'The thing I cannot get my head around is that there could have been a period of David's long life when he might have been suicidal, but this was not the time.'

Schneider said the star had everything going for him and was really on an 'upswing'.

'This was a guy that was alive. He was a living legend and really people were coming around and appreciating him.

The actor in 1970s TV series Kung Fu

'He could not do all the work that was being offered to him. I am convinced, there was no way that he would have killed himself.'

Madsen hosted Carradine's wedding in 2004 and said that his widow was 'very confused' by her late husband's death.

'I talked to Annie about that and she said the most important thing she wanted people to know was that David was not suicidal and he was not depressed.

'He was not about to do something like that, he had a job and he was working.'

Director Martin Scorcese also paid tribute to the actor and said he was deeply saddened by the tragic news.

'We met when we made ’Boxcar Bertha’ together, almost 40 years ago,' he said.

'I have very fond memories of our time together on that picture and on Mean Streets, where he agreed to do a brief cameo.'

Others agreed the star seemed happy.

'I can tell you 100 percent that he would have never committed suicide,' Tiffany Smith, who along with Chuck Binder managed the Kill Bill star. 'He was too full of life.'

'We're just waiting for them to finish the investigation and find out what really happened.

'He really appreciated everything life has to give ... and that's not something David would ever do to himself.'

Binder, said: ‘He was full of life, always wanting to work – a great person.’

He starred in Quentin Tarantino's two-part saga Kill Bill alongside Uma Thurman

Michael Madsen, who played an assassin in Kill Bill said: 'It is shocking to me that he is no longer with us.'

'I had been thinking about calling him for the last several days. ... I have so many great memories of David that I wouldn’t even know where to begin . He has a very special place in my heart.'

The luxurious Nai Lert hotel in Bangkok, where Carradine's body was found

'We have checked the CCTV's and nobody else came in and out of his room.

'The room was also in perfect order. Nothing else seems to have been touched. There was some money lying around on a table and a bottle of drinking water and some water in a glass.

'His body has been taken to Chulalongkorn Hospital for a forensic examination but we expect they will find he died of asphyxiation.'

He said there was a foot-print on the bed which did not match any of Carradine's shoes but it probably was not related to the enquiry.

Hospital's chief coroner Nantana Sirisap said: 'We are now running tests and then we will decide the cause of death.

'This certainly was not a natural cause of death.'

Carradine, whose career had recently undergone a renaissance after he appeared in Quentin Tarantino’s bloody two-part martial arts film saga Kill Bill, was in Thailand shooting his latest film, Stretch.

He had been staying at the luxury Swissitel Nai Lert Park since Tuesday.

The crew could not find him after he failed to turn up for a meal on Wednesday night and his body was discovered at 10am yesterday.

Aurelio Giraudo, the hotel's general manager, said Carradine checked into the hotel May 31 and he last saw him June 3.

He said Carradine chatted with staff and even played piano a few nights in the lobby as well as flute which the 'guests really enjoyed'.

Quentin Tarantino, Michael Madsen and Rob Schneider all told US talk show host Larry King there was no way the actor killed himself

The hotel, next to the British Embassy in Bangkok is famous for its penis shrine, a tribute to penis power.

The shrine is associated with fertility and visitors make offerings to the female Spirit of Tubtim who hovers around a nearby canal.

The offerings come in the form of phalluses in all shapes and sizes.

Carradine with wife Annie, right, and daughter attending 'Rock the Cure' at the Hard Rock Cafe in Los Angeles in 2005

Carradine with Kill Bill director Tarantino at the Golden Globe Awards in 2005

Carradine got his big break in Kung Fu as Kwai Chang Caine, nicknamed Grasshopper, the soft-spoken monk and martial arts expert who travelled through America’s Old West spreading wisdom and battling bad guys.

The show captured the imagination of millions of youngsters. Phrases from Kung Fu such as ‘Snatch the pebble from my hand’ were endlessly repeated in the playground.

Children put ping-pong balls, which had been cut in half, in their eyes in imitation of the show’s blind character, Master Po.

Kung Fu was first screened in 1972 and spawned a film and numerous other offshoots.

Carradine’s portrayal of Caine earned him a nomination for an Emmy, U.S. TV’s highest honour. He left after three seasons.

Carradine and Brandon Lee practice a fighting for the sequel to 'Kung Fu' in 1985

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Actor David Carradine found dead in Bangkok (AP)

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BANGKOK - Actor David Carradine, star of the 1970s TV series "Kung Fu" who also had a wide-ranging career in the movies, has been found dead in the Thai capital, Bangkok. A news report said he was found hanged in his hotel room and was believed to have committed suicide.

A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy, Michael Turner, confirmed the death of the 72-year-old actor. He said the embassy was informed by Thai authorities that Carradine died either late Wednesday or early Thursday, but he could not provide further details out of consideration for his family.

The Web site of the Thai newspaper The Nation cited unidentified police sources as saying Carradine was found Thursday hanged in his luxury hotel room.

It said Carradine was in Bangkok to shoot a movie and had been staying at the hotel since Tuesday.

The newspaper said Carradine could not be contacted after he failed to appear for a meal with the rest of the film crew on Wednesday, and that his body was found by a hotel maid at 10 a.m. Thursday morning. The name of the movie was not immediately available.

It said a preliminary police investigation found that he had hanged himself with a cord used with the room's curtains. It cited police as saying he had been dead at least 12 hours and there was no sign that he had been assaulted.

A police officer at Bangkok's Lumpini precinct station would not confirm the identity of the dead man, but said the luxury Swissotel Nai Lert Park hotel had reported that a male guest killed himself there.

Carradine was a leading member of a venerable Hollywood acting family that included his father, character actor John Carradine, and brother Keith.

In all, he appeared in more than 100 feature films with such directors as Martin Scorsese, Ingmar Bergman and Hal Ashby. One of his prominent early film roles was as singer Woody Guthrie in Ashby's 1976 biopic "Bound for Glory."

But he was best known for his role as Kwai Chang Caine, a Shaolin priest traveling the 1800s American frontier West in the TV series "Kung Fu," which aired in 1972-75.

He reprised the role in a mid-1980s TV movie and played Caine's grandson in the 1990s syndicated series "Kung Fu: The Legend Continues."

He returned to the top in recent years as the title character in Quentin Tarantino's two-part saga "Kill Bill."

The character, the worldly father figure of a pack of crack assassins, was a shadowy presence in 2003's "Kill Bill - Vol. 1." In that film, one of Bill's former assassins (Uma Thurman) begins a vengeful rampage against her old associates.

In "Kill Bill - Vol. 2," released in 2004, Thurman's character comes face to face again with Bill himself. The role brought Carradine a Golden Globe nomination as best supporting actor.

Bill was a complete contrast to his TV character Kwai Chang Caine, the soft-spoken refugee from a Shaolin monastery, serenely spreading wisdom and battling bad guys in the Old West. He left after three seasons, saying the show had started to repeat itself.

After "Kung Fu," Carradine starred in the 1975 cult flick "Death Race 2000." He starred with Liv Ullmann in Bergman's "The Serpent's Egg" in 1977 and with his brothers in the 1980 Western "The Long Riders."

But after the early 1980s, he spent two decades doing mostly low-budget films. Tarantino's films changed that.

"All I've ever needed since I more or less retired from studio films a couple of decades ago ... is just to be in one," Carradine told The Associated Press in 2004.

"There isn't anything that Anthony Hopkins or Clint Eastwood or Sean Connery or any of those old guys are doing that I couldn't do," he said. "All that was ever required was somebody with Quentin's courage to take and put me in the spotlight."

One thing remained a constant after "Kung Fu": Carradine's interest in Oriental herbs, exercise and philosophy. He wrote a personal memoir called "Spirit of Shaolin" and continued to make instructional videos on tai chi and other martial arts.

In the 2004 interview, Carradine talked candidly about his past boozing and narcotics use, but said he had put all that behind him and stuck to coffee and cigarettes.

"I didn't like the way I looked, for one thing. You're kind of out of control emotionally when you drink that much. I was quicker to anger."

"You're probably witnessing the last time I will ever answer those questions," Carradine said. "Because this is a regeneration. It is a renaissance. It is the start of a new career for me.

"It's time to do nothing but look forward."

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