American actor in a theatrical family, the first son of actor John Carradine with the first of his dad’s four wives. He was seven when his folks divorced and he was shuttled between the two from coast to coast. An emotional orphan, he became close to the seven stepbrothers and half brothers that accumulated from his dad’s exploits. He was drafted into the Army but was court-martialed out for shoplifting from a base grocery store in 1961. The family career of acting seemed a natural direction for his life. After lean years of studying music and ballet at San Francisco State, his brief Army hitch and working as a fruit picker, David had an acting breakthrough in 1965 as an Inca king in “The Royal Hunt of the Sun” on Broadway.
With stage, film and TV credits, he played in some hundred roles, mostly regrettable, in films and TV. His best and most memorable job was the TV series “Kung Fu,” 1972-75.
His tempestuous private life included some 500 acid trips, naked neighborhood junkets and a lawsuit for abuse. With a four-year first marriage to Donna Becht behind him, David fell in love with actress Barbara Hershey in 1969. They never married, but had a son in 1972 whom they named “Free,” appropriately for the hippie days of love, peace, dope and flowers.
For three decades, he made a valiant attempt to drink all the alcohol in California, consuming up to a quart and a half a day. His life disintegrated into a long career slide marked by a string of video movies and a reputation for a temper that made him poison for casting.
By 1977, he made an attempt to put on shoes and nurture ambitions more suited to survival but was not able to escape his haze of alcohol. He married Linda McGuinn for a four year stint. In 1989 he married producer-songwriter Gail Jensen and they traded their five-bedroom mansion in the Hollywood hills for a rustic farmhouse in Sun Valley, CA. After nearly seven years marriage, Carradine filed divorce from his third wife in November 1995. Their divorce was final in March 1997. From his prior marriages, he had two daughters, Calista and Kansas, as well as his son. On 20 February 1998, at 61, he married actress Marina Benjamin, 45, on the Kung Fu set where they first met in 1973.
Spurred on by Marina, he put the bottle down for good in March 1996. Sobriety markedly improved his family relationships as well as his acting performances and reputation in the industry.
In 1991 he published his book, “Spirit of Shaolin,” a combination autobiography, kung fu manual and spiritual primer. After a history of high action films, he moved into directing.
The 72-year-old actor was found dead on 4 June 2009 in his Bangkok, Thailand hotel room. Although he was found hanged in a closet, officials could not immediately determine whether the death was an accident, suicide or homicide. Suicide was later ruled out by a private autopsy report and by Thai police. Both sources indicated asphyxiation as the cause of death but further details await additional test results.
Link to Wikipedia biography