Michael Madsen‘s doctor is shedding light on the actor’s cause of death.
The longtime Quentin Tarantino collaborator died from heart failure, with heart disease and alcoholism as contributing factors, his cardiologist told NBC4 Los Angeles. He was 67.
Madsen was found unresponsive at his Malibu, Calif., home on July 3. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department told the outlet that he was pronounced dead at the scene of natural causes, with no foul play suspected.
In the wake of his passing, his sister Virginia Madsen said the family was “not mourning a public figure,” but rather “flesh and blood and ferocious heart.”
“He was thunder and velvet,” the Candyman actress told Variety in a July 3 statement. “Mischief wrapped in tenderness. A poet disguised as an outlaw. A father, a son, a brother—etched in contradiction, tempered by love that left its mark.”
Remembering the Reservoir Dogs alum as a man who “stormed through life loud, brilliant, and half on fire,” she added, “I’ll miss our inside jokes, the sudden laughter, the sound of him. I’ll miss the boy he was before the legend; I miss my big brother.”
Madsen’s death comes six years after he was arrested for having alcohol in his system during a March 2019 car crash where a vehicle he was driving rammed into a pole. The Kill Bill actor was sentenced to four days in jail in addition to probation for the incident, according to the Los Angeles Times.
In September, Madsen—a dad of seven—filed for divorce from his wife of 28 years DeAnna Madsen, alleging that their late 26-year-old son Hudson was driven to suicide by “her neglect, drinking and alcoholism.” He later retracted the allegations, writing on Instagram in October, “I was and not the writer of this story and wish my wife no harm or embarrassment.”
“I deeply apologize for not correcting this earlier but I love my wife and our other 4 children and have no desire for divorce or blame,” added Madsen, who also shares two kids with Jeannine Bisignano and a daughter with Dana Mechling. “She had absolutely nothing to do with what happened to our son.”
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