Tom Sizemore, best known for his roles in Saving Private Ryan and Black Hawk Down, has died at the age of 61, his manager says.
Sizemore rose to prominence in the 1990s as a tough guy, usually military, police, or criminal. Natural Born Killers, Pearl Harbor, and Heat are among his other film credits.
The death was announced by his manager, Charles Lago. The cause was not immediately known, but Mr. Sizemore suffered a stroke on Feb. 18, which caused a brain aneurysm. He had been in a coma and on life support since then.
He did, however, have drug problems and was incarcerated for domestic violence.
Sizemore had been in a coma since February 18, when a brain aneurysm ruptured.
His manager, Charles Lago, said he died on Friday at a hospital in Burbank, California, surrounded by his brother Paul and twin boys Jayden and Jagger, both 17 years old.
“Hundreds of messages of support have comforted the Sizemore family,” Lago said.
Sizemore’s sons were devastated, he said, and he asked that their privacy be respected.
His brother, Paul Sizemore, said: “I am deeply saddened by the loss of my big brother Tom. He was larger than life. He has influenced my life more than anyone I know.
“He was talented, loving, giving and could keep you entertained endlessly with his wit and storytelling ability.”
Sizemore was born in a working-class neighborhood of Detroit and earned a master’s degree in theatre before landing a small role in Oliver Stone’s Born on the Fourth of July in 1989.
That work led to larger roles in 1990s dramas like Tony Scott’s True Romance, Devil in a Blue Dress, opposite Denzel Washington, and the biopic Wyatt Earp, co-starring Kevin Costner.
Stone recast him as the violent Detective Jack Scagnetti in the controversial Natural Born Killers, and he played a henchman for Robert De Niro’s criminal in Heat.
In the 1998 Oscar-winning film Saving Private Ryan, he played the devoted Sergeant Horvath alongside Tom Hanks.
Sizemore was nominated for a Golden Globe for playing a mobster in the 1999 TV movie Witness Protection, and provided the voice of mafia boss Sonny Forelli in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City in 2002.
In 1997, he was arrested on suspicion of assaulting his wife, Maeve Quinlan, an actress and tennis player. Two years later, they divorced.
He was sentenced to six months in prison in 2003 for assaulting his girlfriend, former Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss, and was ordered to complete additional rehab and anger management.
Ms Fleiss testified that he also stubbed out a cigarette on her, knocked her to the ground outside his house, and made more than 70 obscenity-laced phone calls.
He said at the time that he had “permitted my personal demons to take over my life”.
In 2005, he went back to jail for violating his probation by failing a drug test, after being caught trying to use a prosthetic penis to fake the results. According to prosecutors, Sizemore had been caught once before trying to use a similar device.
Two years later, he was sentenced to 16 months for violating the terms of his probation, and was also arrested for driving under the influence.
“I was a guy who’d come from very little and risen to the top,” Sizemore wrote in his 2013 autobiography.
“I’d had the multimillion-dollar house, the Porsche, the restaurant I partially owned with Robert De Niro. And now I had absolutely nothing.”
“I’ve led an interesting life,” he wrote. “But I can’t tell you what I’d give to be the guy you didn’t know anything about.”
A 2007 documentary series, Shooting Sizemore, chronicled his efforts to reclaim his life and career.
While he never regained the roles he had in the 1990s, he did make a guest appearance in the Netflix hit Cobra Kai and had a recurring role in the 2017 revival of David Lynch’s cult TV show Twin Peaks.
source:nsemwokrom.com
