Source: David Carradine Was Desperate For Money
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}David Carradine Was Desperate For Money | Adrian Grenier Struggling With Eco-Friendly Changes On "Entourage" Set | Dana Carvey Trots Out The Political Humor
David Carradine Was Desperate For Money
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.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}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.
PHOTOS: Click here to see photos of David Carradine's remarkable career.
"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."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}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.
FAST FACTS: David Carradine's Biography.
"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."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}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.
RELATED: David Carradine's Career Highlights.
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.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"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.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Adrian Grenier Struggling With Eco-Friendly Changes On "Entourage" Set
Tree-hugging hottie Adrian Grenier may be the star of a hit HBO show, but it doesn’t sound as though the actor is quite getting his way behind-the-scenes on the set of "Entourage."
"It’s a constant struggle, it’s about habits. We are habitual creatures and people don’t always want to change. They only want to do what they know," Grenier told Tarts on Tuesday at the Salvatore Ferragamo soiree in Beverly Hills to support GlobalGiving’s Italy Earthquake Recovery and Relief Fund. "At one point, we wanted to use all bio-diesel generators on-set, but its just not viable as the technology isn’t up to par. So what we did was just replace one generator. It’s a slow process of transformation."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}So while things aren’t running quite as eco-friendly in his professional life, Grenier is greener than ever in his personal life.
"The fact that the Obama's put a garden at the White House is not only a symbolic gesture, but it’s also a very tangibly successful one. I just put in a garden myself, I was inspired," he added proudly. "I’m growing zucchini, lettuce, tomatoes, strawberries and corn."
And even though Grenier himself isn’t into handbags (or so he says) other famous faces such as Madonna, Demi Moore, Jennifer Aniston, Gwyneth Paltrow, Eva Longoria, Lucy Liu, Dita Von Teese, Lily Tomlin and Marisa Tomei have all donated their own signed Ferragamo bags to be auctioned off on eBay to raise for Italy’s quake victims.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Dana Carvey Trots Out The Political Humor
Trust SNL comedian Dana Carvey to make a comparison between our President (whose middle name is Hussein) and the not-so-esteemed former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein while entertaining the crowd at the swanky Heart Foundation dinner honoring Wolfgang Puck in Beverly Hills on Saturday evening.
"I admire any man who can become President with a name like Barack Hussein Obama, imagine voting Charles Manson Hitler for President," Carvey said. "And now we have Dick Cheney… he wouldn’t talk for eight years and now you can’t shut him up."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The response to Carvey’s politically-driven stand-up was luke warm.