From www.foxnews.com- David Carradine was found hanging in his Bangkok Hotel room on Wednesday. With his death still under investigation, a source close to Carradine told Tarts that the actor had been struggling with financial concerns but did not think the 72-year-old actor would have ever even considered taking his own life.
The source says Carradine desperately reached out to some friends in the business that he hadn’t been in contact with for quite some time just weeks ago, asking them to do whatever they could to help him boost the bank balance.
"David had been trying to make some fast cash doing personal appearances and things," said the source. "It was a rough year for him, and he was a big spender and always in debt, but he wouldn't have killed himself over finances. He wouldn't have hung himself, that was too much effort. His ego would never have let him do that."
Nathan Folks, producer of the 2004 film "Last Goodbye," in which Carradine starred with his daughter Kansas, told Tarts that Carradine was "definitely not" suicidal. Pop Tarts also spoke to actress Bai Ling who worked with Carradine on the action comedy "Crank: High Voltage" which was released earlier this year.
"I don't believe he would have killed himself. Even though he was a very complicated man he was so at peace with himself. He did so many good things and really wanted to do more things, he told me his career was just really starting and new," Ling said. "You can see thru his eyes he is a complicated but funny person - he spent 20 years mainly doing independent films which I think made him have a lot of interesting thoughts in his head. But he really was someone who was full of life."
Carradine's wife and children are reportedly "deeply baffled" by the whole incident and are too distraught to talk. Carradine's 31-year-old daughter Kansas reportedly sent an email around to close friends and family relaying the sad news on Thursday morning, requesting that people remember her father for the artist that he was, rather than any of the rumors surrounding his death.
Tarts has also been told that the "Kill Bill" star, who had struggled with alcohol addiction for many years, went thru a major detox program in 2008 and was happily off the booze.
"He was working, he was working as if there wasn't a recession, he wasn't doing what he did the year before, but he was consistently working, he was shooting a film in Bangkok," Carradine's manager Chuck Binder told Tarts.
"He will really be missed as a great friend and a great actor. We worked with him for the last six years and we never had a bad conversation. He was a pleasure to work with."
Carradine was set to co-star in the feature film "Portland" shooting in Los Angeles and Portland, Oregon this summer. "An actor of David Carradine’s stature behind our film meant the world to us," the film's executive producers Adrian Salpeter and Elizabeth Levine of Random Bench Productions told Tarts in a statement. "Our thoughts are with his family and friends at this difficult time".
The movie will go ahead in Carradine's memory. Recasting for his role is already underway.
