The actor Tom Sizemeer is dead. The Hollywood star known for films such as “Black Hawk Down”, “Saving Private Ryan” or “Pearl Harbor” died on Friday at the age of 61 in a California hospital surrounded by his family, his spokesman said after agreeing gone with media reports with .
The news unfortunately comes as no surprise as the former war film actor was hospitalized after suffering a stroke in mid-February and has been in a coma ever since. Here he was diagnosed with a brain aneurysm, a life-threatening bulge in an artery in the brain, likely a direct result of the stroke.
At the end of February it was already known that the treating doctors saw no hope of improvement and had advised the family to turn off the ventilators.
Tom Sizemore – Hollywood’s big deal
Tom Sizemore in particular was the man for the rough roles in Hollywood: police officers, hacked detectives, soldiers and tough gangsters. The actor became known to a wider audience in the mid-1990s through appearances in films such as Tony Scott’s “True Romance”, Oliver Stone’s “Natural Born Killers” or Michael Mann’s cult classic “Heat”.
At the beginning of the 2000s, Sizemore had reached the peak of his career and he excelled in (anti) war films such as “Black Hawk Down” or “Pearl Harbor”. The actor’s role as Sergeant Horvath in Steven Spielberg’s anti-war drama “The soldier James Ryan“where he works with Tom Hanks in the European war zone to find the eponymous soldier Ryan (Matt Damon) and bring him home safely.
The actor has been quiet in recent years, apart from conflicts with the law. Sizemore has been arrested several times on domestic violence charges. But illegal drug possession and probation violations also bothered the former Hollywood star. Also on the reality TV show Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew”Sizemore attended and had a camera crew follow him through his rehab.