Actor Tom Sizemore, known for his tough guy roles in movies like Saving Private Ryan and Black Hawk Down, has died at the age of 61. TMZ reports that Sizemore passed away in an L.A.-area hospital after his family made the painful decision to remove him from life support. Sizemore suffered a brain aneurysm on a February 18 that caused him to collapse and lose consciousness. The actor was rushed to the hospital at 2 AM and never regained consciousness. Sizemore’s manager, Charles Lago, said the aneurysm was the result of a stroke the actor had suffered. The Saving Private Ryan actor died with his brother Paul and his 17-year-old twin sons Jayden and Jagger by his side.
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The Troubled Life of ‘Saving Private Ryan’ Actor Tom Sizemore
The Daily Beast says that Tom Sizemore, who was born in Detroit, got his start as an actor in the 1980s and gained notoriety in the 1990s. The actor was known for tough guy roles that included police officers, conmen, and soldiers. He gained particular attention for roles in the the 1993 movies Heart and Soul, True Romance, and 1994’s Natural Born Killers (the latter two being written by Quentin Tarantino). He also garnered praise for his performance in 1995’s Heat.
Unfortunately, it was during Heat’s release that the public became aware of Sizemore’s issues with substance abuse. Sizemore’s co-star, Robert DeNiro, staged an intervention where he told Sizemore, “OK. OK, now we can talk … Now you listen to me, I’m no psychiatrist … but you’re either going to go to rehab or go to prison.” A police officer walked in during that intervention. Recalling the intervention, Sizemore said, “I was trying to make a joke out of it because all these people are there and I’m embarrassed and he went, ‘Tom, I’m not playing. They’ll put you in jail for a year!’”
While Sizemore would go on to have career-defining roles in Saving Private Ryan and Black Hawk Down, his personal issues continued on. In 2011, Sizemore’s ex-wife Maeve Quinlan accused the actor of spousal abuse in 1997. He also received a 6-month jail sentence in 2003 for assaulting his then-girlfriend Heidi Fleiss. He also was seen having sex with multiple women in a leaked 2005 sex tape.
Despite his troubles, Tom Sizemore continued to thrive as an actor, portraying an internal affairs investigator on five episodes of Hawaii Five-O, a C.I.A. agent assigned to rescue three American journalists taken hostage in Radical, and a commander in the science fiction film Battle for Pandora.
Actor Tom Sizemore is survived by his mother; his twin sons, his brother, his half-sister, Katherine Sizemore, and his half brother, Charles Sizemore
