On Tuesday, news broke of the actor's death at the age of 67. Suddenly, all the Madsens, those who were and those who never came to be, came to an end. The actor's lifeless body was found by the police at his home in Malibu, in Los Angeles County, after a call from Emergency services. The sheriff's department confirmed that there is no suspicion of foul play.
"Maybe I was born in the wrong era. I feel nostalgic for the golden age of black and white films. The actors back then conveyed truth, honesty. Maybe the scripts were too simple, but the anti-hero type left no room for doubt and I think it suited my way of being and acting better," he declared to The Guardian some time ago when asked about the limited impact of his tireless career spread across almost 300 titles with tiny and forgettable roles in most of them.
"Listen, kid, I'm not gonna lie to you, okay? I don't give a damn about what you know or don't know, but I will torture you anyway. Not to get information out of you. I just enjoy torturing a cop. You can say whatever you want, because I've heard it all before. You can only pray for a quick death, which you ain't gonna get." These lines from the script could be heard in Reservoir Dogs and, in one way or another, have haunted him in each of his steps.
Among the upcoming projects are up to 18 productions with his name in the credits. All of them and a book of poems titled Tears for My Father: Outlaw Thoughts and Poems. In a previous poetry book, the man who considered wearing makeup for acting unmanly, the man who said he worked solely to support his family after three marriages, the man who felt ashamed every time his face appeared in one of the movies he hated making, the man who could have been but wasn't writes: "I am lost. Alone. And wanting to kill myself. Although it is unlikely that I will act on it. / I am a kind of oddball. Admired by other oddballs because I play oddballs."