‘Saving Private Ryan’, ‘Heat’ star Tom Sizemore dies aged 61 after suffering a brain aneurysm

Tom Sizemore, who often played tough roles in a career dating back to the ’80s and struggled with addiction and a series of legal troubles in real life, died Friday, nearly two weeks after suffering a brain aneurysm from one stroke. He had been hospitalized in critical condition and has since been in a coma and in intensive care. He was 61.

“I am deeply saddened by the loss of my big brother Tom,” brother Paul Sizemore said in a statement to Yahoo Entertainment. “He was larger than life. He has impacted my life more than anyone I know. He was talented, loving, giving and could endlessly entertain you with his wit and storytelling ability. I am devastated that he is gone and I will always miss him. “

His ex-wife, actress Maevee Quinlin, sent “my heartfelt condolences to the entire Sizemore family. . . . My thoughts and prayers go out in a special way to Tom’s two sons, Jayden and Jagger. May God hold you both in His hand, give you strength and bless you all the days of your life.”

The news comes four days later. Sizemore manager Charles Lago told Yahoo Entertainment that Sizemore’s medical team told the family that “there is no hope and recommended an end-of-life decision.”

“We ask for privacy for his family at this difficult time and they would like to thank everyone for the hundreds of messages of support and prayers they have received,” Lago said. “It was a difficult time for her.”

There will be a private cremation service for the family, with a larger celebration of life planned in a few weeks.

Sizemore is best known for action films and crime dramas, including The soldier James Ryan, where he played Sgt. Horvath, as well Black Hawk below, passenger 57, heat, true romance, Natural born killers, devil in a blue dress, The Relic And strange days. On television, he played a recurring role in the third season of China Beach which aired in 1989 and 1990; co-star in 2017 twin peaks Revival; and directed the 1999 TV movie witness protectionfor which he received a Golden Globe nomination.

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The Detroit native said he fell in love with movies as a kid when his mom, a movie buff, started taking him and his siblings to the triple feature the local theater was showing on Saturdays. When he saw this for the first time, he was blown away The Wizard of Oz on a TV station for classic films.

“When we saw a movie called beckettwith Peter O’Toole and Richard Burton, I guess I was probably 11 or 12, and… I didn’t understand the movie that much when I got that Burton and O’Toole’s relationship was special, and I came into the movie drama of it,” he said decider in May 2022. “And then a few years later, when I was 14, I saw taxi driver. And that was the first time I remember wanting to know who the actor was, who the person playing that role was. I was so drawn to the character Travis Bickle (played by Robert De Niro) that I wanted to know, ‘Who is doing this?’ And I was obsessed with it. I watched this movie every week for about two months while it was in theaters. I watched it 11 weeks in a row. That’s when I thought for the first time: ‘Whatever they’re doing up there, I want to be part of it. I want to do that.’ And I started figuring out how to be an actor, and I started doing research, and my mom helped me with that.”

Sizemore began his own career with small roles in Born on July 4th And point break and spent the ’90s mostly in action movies, although he did something else with romance heart and soul 1993, in which he played one of Robert Downey Jr.’s guardian angels.

However, his work on screen has been eclipsed by the drama in his personal life, which has included drugs and arrests, which he wrote about in his 2013 memoir. Miraculously, I made it out of there. He said alcohol helped him cope with his success for a while, but it soon wasn’t enough.

“People could tell if you were drunk, so I was like, ‘Hey look, let me find a drug that makes me feel good in my own skin,'” he told the AP while promoting it. “But I did it. I found a drug and it was called cocaine. I’ve been doing it for a while. Then I found an even better drug and it was called heroin.”

He later found crystal meth.

After continuing to work with De Niro, his childhood idol heat, De Niro confronted Sizemore about his drug use and put him in rehab himself. His sobriety was temporary, however, and he faced more than one arrest for drug possession and further legal troubles for violating his probation over the years.

Sizemore was also charged with domestic violence, including against Quinlin, to whom he was married from 1996 to 1999. In 2003 he was sentenced physically abusing his ex-girlfriend Heidi Fleiss.

In 2005 he was the subject of a sex tape he “the maraschino cherry on the banana split of bad luck I had.”

Sizemore’s career status suffered and he starred in a VH1 reality show. Shooting Sizemoreabout his comeback attempt in 2006. This was followed a few years later by changes on the network celebrity rehab And Sober housenext to diligence and other minor celebrities.

2017, The Hollywood Reporter revealed that Sizemore had been removed from a film set in 2003 for allegedly molesting an 11-year-old girl, who subsequently filed a civil suit against the actor. While offering his condolences to his accuser, Sizemore denied touching her inappropriately, and that Complaint was dismissed in 2020.

Career-wise, Sizemore’s later work was similar to his earlier projects, if not as high-profile. He still had many in the works, including a dozen in post-production, according to IMDb. Among them were a series of Cobra Kai; Horror movie Book of Nightmares, starring Michael Madsen and Bai Ling; and action thrillers The Legend of Johnny Jonesin which he would star alongside Danny Trejo and Kevin Sorbo.

Lago told Yahoo that in recent years, Sizemore “has put his life back in a great place. He loved his sons and his family.”

Sizemore is survived by his teenage twin sons, Jayden and Jagger, from his relationship with Janelle McIntire. Lago told Yahoo that “the twins are devastated by the loss of their father and will release a statement at a later date.”