Personal blog - and temporary home page until new website is finished - of writer, editor and graphic artist Christopher Mills


Thursday, June 04, 2009

David Carradine, R.I.P.

I never really watched Kung Fu. In fact, I've probably seen more episodes of the 90's syndicated sequel series, Kung Fu: the Legend Continues, and I only saw two or three of those. So, David Carradine wasn't "Grasshopper" to me.

No, I'm a B-movie junkie, so David Carradine was Frankenstein in Death Race 2000, Kaz Oshay in Deathsport, Coy "Cannonball" Buckman in Cannonball, hardboiled cop Shepherd in Q, Rawley Wilkes in Lone Wolf McQuade, Kain in The Warrior & The Sorceress, badass bartender Jim Roth in Armed Response, the two-gun Dracula of Sundown, and of course, four different characters in Circle of Iron.

And those are just the characters I remembered off the top of my head.

David Carradine died yesterday in Bangkok, Thailand. Apparently it was a suicide. I have a hard time reconciling that with confident, cocky, sometimes arrogant Carradine, but one never knows, I guess. He was 72.

Rest well.

5 comments:

Martin Powell said...

His KUNG FU was a favorite of mine when I was in high school. Such a weird, even haunting show. I loved it. Never missed it.

I'm sorry David felt he needed to leave us so suddenly. I suppose he had his reasons.

Charles Gramlich said...

I have a hard time believing suicide too. but who knows the underlying story. I did watch Kung fu and enjoyed it quite a bit.

El Vox said...

Yep, I watched Kung Fu, too. If I remember correctly, they made a movie of the opening of how he became grasshopper. At any rate, I remember him from Death Race as well :) Plus one of his later pics, Kill Bill.

Gary Dobbs/Jack Martin said...

he was found dead in a closet - seems a strange place to kill oneself.

El Vox said...

Chris--I don't know if you & others heard, but they're making a mini-series of the Prisoner on AMC you can get details there, and download and watch online the old series from the 60's. How cool is that? They also have some B-films and SF films to watch like: Asylum, Corridors of Blood, Invasions of the Humaniods, and so forth.