Michael Madsen, who became one of Hollywood’s reigning bare-knuckled character actors thanks to indelible performances in Quentin Tarantino’s “Reservoir Dogs” and “Kill Bill” series, as well as in the critically acclaimed mob film “Donnie Brasco,” died on Thursday at his home in Malibu, Calif. He was 67.
The cause was cardiac arrest, said his manager, Ron Smith.
Mr. Madsen never achieved leading-man status like his soul mates Charles Bronson and James Gandolfini — but perhaps, measured by volume, he did. A tough guy’s tough guy, he seemed ubiquitous in his 1990s heyday, one of those guy-who-was-in-everything actors, like Don Cheadle and Luis Guzman.
His entry on the Internet Movie Database cites 346 acting credits. By comparison, Mr. Bronson, a longtime marquee-topper known for star vehicles like the “Death Wish” series, had 164 when he died in 2003 at 81.
With a whiff of Mickey Rourke, a hint of Sylvester Stallone and a linebacker’s physique, Mr. Madsen had the air of a throwback actor, a timeless Hollywood heavy who seemed to have stepped out of a 1940s film noir.
If the role called for a sprinkle of sadism, Mr. Madsen was your man, as showcased in “Reservoir Dogs” (1992), Mr. Tarantino’s breakout crime thriller about a crew of slick-suited thieves bungling a diamond heist in the bloodiest possible fashion. He was part of an ensemble cast that also included Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Chris Penn and Steve Buscemi.
Few could forget — or sleep after seeing — Mr. Madsen’s flinch-inducing performance in the film as the very brunette Mr. Blonde fiddling with a stereo knob, then strutting his way around a warehouse with a straight razor and a psychopath’s sang-froid to the sound of “Stuck in the Middle With You,” the hit 1973 song by Stealers Wheel, as he draws out the torture of a soon-to-be-earless kidnapped police officer.
He received critical kudos for another outside-the-law performance: pas the menacingly cool mob boss Sonny in “Donnie Brasco,” the 1997 film based on a true story about an undercover cop (Johnny Depp) who befriends a worn-down mob enforcer (Al Pacino) in order to to infiltrate a crew in the Bonanno crime family.
A full obituary will appear soon.
Alex Williams is a Times reporter on the Obituaries desk.
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