Several of the tough guy parts he did early in his career were portrayed with mesmerising intensity by Tom Sizemore. Sizemore, who was gruff and green-eyed, participated in a number of films that are now regarded classics, most notably Saving Private Ryan in 1998. But, the actor’s battles with addiction and legal issues would overshadow his skills and career.
Sizemore was hospitalised and put in serious condition on February 18 after suffering a brain aneurysm. Sizemore had been in a coma since the day before his death on Friday. The actor was 61 years old at the time.
“I am very grieved by the death of not just a client, but also a dear friend and mentor of over 15 years,” Sizemore’s manager, Charles Lago, said in a statement. “Tom was one of the most genuine, kind, and kind people I had the pleasure of knowing. His perseverance in the face of hardship was always an inspiration to me. The last several years had been terrific for him, and he was putting his life back on track. He was devoted to his boys and his family. I shall deeply miss my buddy Tom Sizemore.”
Sizemore grew up in Detroit, watching movies with his mother. As he told the website Decider in 2022, he was captivated by Robert De Niro’s portrayal in Taxi Driver.
“I watched that movie every week for like two months when it was in theatres,” he said. “It was on for 11 weeks in a row. That’s when I first began thinking, ‘Whatever it is they’re doing up there, I want to be part of it. That’s something I’d want to do.’ Then I began to consider how to become an actress.”
Sizemore attended Wayne State University and Temple University to study theatre. During a spell spent serving tables in New York City while attempting to build himself a career, he began to get cast in an astonishing string of critically acclaimed films.
Beginning in 1989, Sizemore starred in brief parts in Oliver Stone’s Born on the Fourth of July, as well as two early Kathryn Bigelow films, Point Break and Blue Steel. Sizemore gradually progressed to greater parts in films such as Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man, Passenger 57, True Romance, and Natural Born Killers.
In Devil in a Blue Dress, he played Harvey Keitel’s replacement, and in Heat, he played a member of a criminal gang alongside his idol, Robert De Niro. Later, in Saving Private Ryan, Sizemore delivered the words that persuaded his company of devastated Army troops that looking for their missing buddy could be the one honourable thing they could do amid the brutality of WWII.
After playing in a couple more huge Hollywood military pictures, like Black Hawk Down and Pearl Harbor, Sizemore’s life went off the tracks. He was convicted of beating his then-fiancée Heidi Fleiss, sometimes known as the “Hollywood Madam,” in 2003. He was arrested many times for drunk driving, drug possession, and domestic abuse. Moreover, according to several cast and crew members, he reportedly acted improperly with an 11-year-old child on a film set, but the charge was rejected in 2020.
Sizemore was able to continue working. He was in the lowest-grossing film of 2006. And he attempted to clean up many times. Sizemore revealed on Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew in 2010 that it was his seventh time in treatment and that his periods of recovery had been the happiest of his life.
Sizemore was gradually regaining notoriety by 2016, starring as a guest on prominent TV and online programmes such as Lucifer, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, the Twin Peaks remake, and Cobra Kai.
“I’m a pitcher, an older pitcher now, and I used to throw 98 mph and I still throw 98 mph when I’m acting,” he said the following year to the Daily Mail.
According to his management, Sizemore’s brother Paul and twin sons Jayden and Jagger, all 17, were at his side when he died.
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