Michael Madsen, Tarantino's favorite actor in 'Kill Bill' and 'Reservoir Dogs,' dies at 67.

Actor Michael Madsen, a well-known Hollywood figure and star of films such as Kill Bill , Donnie Brasco , and Reservoir Dogs , died Thursday at his home in Malibu, south of Los Angeles, California. The Hollywood Reporter confirmed this, although TMZ was the first to report the news. Madsen was 67.

According to the tabloid, with reliable sources within the police, an unidentified person called emergency services early this morning, where sheriff's deputies responded. The American actor was found in his home and pronounced dead there at around 8:30 a.m. "Our working hypothesis is that Michael suffered a cardiac arrest," police officials said in a press statement.

Madsen was a prolific Hollywood veteran, with a career spanning more than 300 titles dating back to the 1980s, when he began making television series such as Hospital, Miami Vice , and Mackey's Honor. In the 1990s, he had appearances in such well-known titles as Free Willy , Thelma & Louise , Wyatt Earp , and, of course, Donnie Brasco , in which he played Sonny.

But his most popular titles came from the hand of Quentin Tarantino: he bet on him for Reservoir Dogs (1992) as Mr. Blonde; in the first part of Kill Bill in 2003; in The Hateful Eight in 2015; and also featured him in Once Upon a Time in... Hollywood in 2019. Although these were his main roles, Madsen continued to work on smaller films at a tireless pace, averaging six or eight films a year, most of them with hero or supporting action roles, such as sheriffs, generals or detectives.

In recent years, he continued to work nonstop. In fact, his profile on the film website IMDb shows that he was working on no fewer than 18 projects, although filming hadn't yet begun on many of them. However, he always maintained that he wasn't the famous tough guy, with his always slightly crooked chin and crossed gaze, that he played in so many films.

“I'm not like that,” he asserted in an interview with EL PAÍS in 2007 , as part of the Seville European Film Festival. Madsen frequently visited Spain. “That tough guy in the movies isn't my persona. I'm frightening, and I don't know why. I'm, above all, a thinker, an observer of society. When I work as an actor, I live a solitary life. I spend time in hotels, on trains, on planes... I'm like a kind of vagabond. I've traveled the world and seen things that not many people have seen, which makes me feel fortunate. In my solitary, itinerant life, I've had time to write things. I didn't write them to publish them. I wrote them on matchboxes, in paper bags... And I put them in a box.”

The brother and husband of actresses—his sister, Virginia Madsen, is also an actor—the actor has always been in the spotlight. But in recent years, he has been in the press more for personal issues and problems than for his work. In 2012, he was arrested by police for drunk driving; in August 2019, he suffered a similar arrest, which resulted in him spending four days in prison (and five years on probation) after driving his car after drinking alcohol, which led to an accident in Malibu. In February 2022, he was arrested for trespassing: he spent a couple of hours in the hospital and another two at the police station, before being released.

In August of last year, Madsen was arrested in Los Angeles for violence against his wife, DeAnna Madsen, who called police to report that her husband had pushed her after an argument and locked her out of their home. The actor was held in jail and was released after posting $20,000 (€17,000) bail.

Michael's marriage to DeAnna was the actor's third, and he had seven children from his various relationships. One of his toughest moments came in January 2022, when his son Hudson died. The 26-year-old committed suicide by shooting himself on Oahu, Hawaii, where he lived with his wife. “I'm in shock , as my son, whom I spoke to a few days ago, told me he was happy; my last text message from him was, 'I love you, Dad,'” he shared with the Los Angeles Times days after the boy's death. “I didn't see any signs of depression. It's very tragic and sad. I'm trying to make sense of it all and understand what happened,” he stated at the time.

Hudson was the eldest son of Michael and DeAnna (also an actress), with whom he also shares two other children, Calvin and Luke. But before that, in the late 1970s, he had a daughter, Jessica. In addition, in the early 1980s, Madsen married Georganne LaPiere, Cher's sister, with whom he was married for four years, between 1984 and 1988. After their divorce, he married Jeannine Bisignano, an actress and producer, in 1991, with whom he had two more sons, Christian and Max. Madsen and Bisignano divorced in 1995. It was just a year later that he married DeAnna, then named Morgan, in Jamaica. They had his three young children.

Madsen leaves behind several unfinished projects. “Over the past two years, Michael Madsen has been doing incredible work in independent film, including the upcoming features Resurrection Road , Concessions , and Cookbook for Southern Housewives , and he was looking forward to this next chapter in his life,” his agents said in the statement. “He was also preparing to release a new book titled Tears For My Father: Outlaw Thoughts and Poems , currently in editing.” “He was one of Hollywood’s most iconic actors, and he will be missed by so many.”