
Michael Madsen, a prolific character actor best known for his frequent appearances in Quentin Tarantino films, died Thursday morning. The cause of death, his manager said (per NBC News), was cardiac arrest. He was 67.
Madsen’s acting career began with a chance run-in. In 1980, his friend took him to see a production of Of Mice And Men at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Company, starring a young John Malkovich. In an interview with The Independent, Madsen recalls wandering into the wings where he found Malkovich taking off his makeup. Malkovich promised to send the young Madsen a brochure for acting classes and then actually followed up. A couple months later, Madsen himself was on stage in a different Steppenwolf production of the same play.
From there, he moved to Los Angeles, where he secured some bit roles in TV shows and films throughout the ’80s like WarGames (which he told The A.V. Club brought him to L.A. in the first place in a 2015 interview), as well as St. Elsewhere, Miami Vice, Cagney & Lacey, Quantum Leap, The Doors, and more.
In 1991, he landed one of his first major parts, as Susan Sarandon’s boyfriend in Thelma & Louise. “There’s a nice little part for anytime that people think that I’ve been put in the corner as the guy with the cigarette and the gun,” he told The A.V. Club. “I can say, ‘Well, what about Thelma & Louise? I got to play a nice guy, a romantic guy, and a gentleman.’ I rarely get asked to do stuff like that, so I was happy.”
He was the guy with the cigarette and the gun in Reservoir Dogs, which followed in 1992. He had the chance to be an A-list star in the years following—a scheduling conflict kept him from playing Vincent Vega in Pulp Fiction, a role that eventually netted John Travolta an Oscar nomination—but he mostly stayed on the sidelines. “I’m not a publicity hound,” he told The Independent. “I don’t care about being on the cover of GQ or Vanity Fair. There was a time when I could have done that, but I didn’t have a publicist. And I think the studios decided I was some sort of renegade or malcontent.”
That doesn’t mean he didn’t have an incredibly fruitful career, however. Madsen went on to appear in three other Tarantino films—Kill Bill: Volume 2, The Hateful Eight, and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, as well as Free Willy, Wyatt Earp, Donnie Brasco, Die Another Day, and many, many, others. “If a time machine existed, I would’ve liked to have played Doc Holliday. But it was fun. I just like to live in the present. Hey, I’m in The Hateful Eight. I’m a happy man!” he told The A.V. Club.
In a joint statement shared with USA Today, Madsen’s managers wrote, “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,” they added. “Michael Madsen was one of Hollywood’s most iconic actors, who will be missed by many.”