Friend Doubts Carradine Committed Suicide

A longtime friend of actor David Carradine says it "doesn't make sense" that the star killed himself.

Actor Michael Madsen said on The Early Show Friday depression "wasn't really a part of Carradine's makeup.

Carradine was found dead Thursday in a luxury hotel room in Bangkok, Thailand. The star, best-known for the 1970s TV series "Kung Fu," was alone in a closet with ropes around his neck and genitals, tied together, Thai police say.

At first, they speculated that Carradine had committed suicide, but backed away from that on Friday and are now saying Carradine's death may have resulted from accidental suffocation or heart failure.

Autopsy results were pending.

Madsen called Carradine's death "kind of shocking." He told Early Show co-anchor Julie Chen he "could never have imagined anybody like David, (who) was so full of life and so happy and working (would commit suicide). You figure somebody might do something like that when they're unemployed or destitute. He was working hard and having a good time, and it doesn't make sense."

"I spoke to his wife this morning," Madsen added, "and she really wants everybody to know that David was not suicidal. Certainly, I would have known about something like that. Depression wasn't really a part of his personality. Whatever causes people to have that emotion, he seems to have -- seemed to have gotten over it."

Madsen says Carradine was in "really good spirits" when he saw him recently. "He was very happy that he was going back to work. He had three pictures lined up. ... Anybody who's working that much, I don't... He was very happy."

Asked how he'd remember his friend, Madsen recalled being told Carradine was playing piano at a recording studio as he sang, "Somewhere Over The Rainbow."

"That side of David, I don't think too many people knew about," Madsen noted. "I think he'd like to be remembered as somebody who was -- he was a great talent and a wonderful friend."