Actor Tom Sizemore dies at 61 in California

BURBANK, Calif. (AP) — Tom Sizemore, who starred in “Saving Private Ryan” and whose stardom in the 1990s faded due to dating violence and drug addiction, died Friday. He was 61 years old.

The actor had suffered a brain aneurysm on February 18 at his home in Los Angeles. He died while sleeping in a hospital in Burbank, Calif., his representative Charles Lago said.

Sizemor has become a star whose performances have won acclaim for his roles in ‘Natural Born Killers’ and the classic crime thriller ‘Heat’.

However, his severe drug addiction, abuse charges and multiple run-ins with the law destroyed his career, he lost his home and ended up in jail.

As the wave of the global “MeToo” movement peaked in late 2017, Sizemore was also accused of groping an 11-year-old girl from Utah on stage in 2003. No charges were brought against him.

Despite his many legal troubles, Sizemore maintained steady film and television credits, although his career never reached its peak again.

Aside from “Black Hawk Down” and “Pearl Harbor,” most of his 21st century performances were in low-budget, less exposed productions in which he continued to play the gruff, rugged characters that made him famous. .

“I was a person who came from the bottom and reached the top. I had a million dollar house, the Porsche, the restaurant that I co-owned with Robert De Niro,” Sizemore wrote. , born in Detroit, in his 2013 memoir “By Some Miracle I Made It Out of There.” of miracles). “And now I have absolutely nothing.”

The book’s title was taken from a phrase uttered by his character in “Saving Private Ryan,” a role for which he sounded like a possible Oscar nominee.

However, the actor wrote that this success made him a “spoiled movie star”, an “arrogant jerk” and ultimately a “hope to die addict”.

The artist has been arrested several times for domestic violence. Sizemore was formerly married to actress Maeve Quinland and was arrested for allegedly beating her in 1997. Although charges were dropped, the couple divorced in 1999.

Sizemore was convicted of beating his ex-girlfriend Heidi Fleiss in 2003, the same year he pleaded no contest and avoided trial in a separate assault case, and was sentenced to prison.

Fleiss testified that Sizemore beat her in New York to the point that they couldn’t attend the premiere of “Black Hawk Down.”