Actor David Carradine Is Dead, Possibly by Suicide

David Carradine, the 72-year-old actor best known to one generation as Kwai Chang Caine, a Shaolin priest in the Wild West in the TV series Kung Fu and to another as the eponymous Bill from 2003-04′s Kill Bill moviees, has died.  

He was in Bangkok shooting the film Stretch and was found dead in his hotel room after failing to meet up with the rest of the cast and crew for a meal yesterday.  Thai police have reported that he hanged himself in the closet of his hotel room, though sources close to Carradine are disputing that this was a suicide.  

TMZ reports that while a Thai officer said, “I can confirm that we found his body, naked, hanging in the closet,” Carradine had been in high spirits in the days leading up to his death.

We just spoke with the director of the film David finished last week. Jim Wynorski told us as recently as a week ago Sunday, David was “jovial, full of life and kept everyone laughing on the set.” Wynorski said he constantly talked about his family — the apparent suicide “just doesn’t at all seem like him.”

And ET Online spoke with one of his agents:

“David would never have taken his own life, he would never have committed suicide and the investigation is at the highest level to find out the cause of the death.”

TMZ, however, found a 2004 interview in which Carradine had spoken of considering suicide:

“Look, there was a period in my life when I had a single action Colt 45, loaded, in my desk drawer. 

“And every night I’d take it out and think about blowing my head off, and then decide not to and go on with my life.”

The autopsy will be finished in a few days’ time.

Source: TMZ, TMZ, ET Online, the AP.