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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Andrew Pulver

Tom Sizemore, star of Saving Private Ryan, dies aged 61 after brain aneurysm

Tom Sizemore in 2014
Tom Sizemore, pictured in 2014, has died aged 61 after suffering a brain aneurysm. Photograph: Reuters

Tom Sizemore, the actor best known for appearances in Saving Private Ryan and The Relic, has died aged 61, his manager confirmed in a statement.

“It is with great sadness and sorrow I have to announce that actor Thomas Edward Sizemore … passed away peacefully in his sleep today at St Joseph’s Hospital Burbank. His Brother Paul and twin boys Jayden and Jagger (17) were at his side,” Sizemore’s representative, Charles Lago said.

Sizemore has been in a coma in the intensive care unit of Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center in Los Angeles after suffering a brain aneurysm on 18 February.

On 28 February, Lago said that doctors had told the actor’s family that there was “no further hope.”

At the time, Lago said: “Today doctors informed his family that there is no further hope and have recommended end-of-life decision. The family is now deciding end-of-life matters.”

Born in Detroit in 1961, Sizemore gained a reputation for tough-guy roles in war and action films in the 1990s and 2000s. He had small roles as law enforcement types in Point Break and True Romance, and bigger roles as a detective in ultraviolent thriller Natural Born Killers and a member of a heist crew in Heat.

Sizemore’s first lead role was as another cop: the detective in the horror film The Relic, in which a vicious monster goes on a killing spree in a museum. He was then cast in a prominent role in Saving Private Ryan, as Tom Hanks’ second-in-command, dropping out of Terrence Malick’s war film The Thin Red Line to do so.

Later film roles saw him appear in Black Hawk Down, Splinter and Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House. More recently Sizemore was cast in TV shows including regular roles in Robbery Homicide Division, Dr Vegas and the Hawaii Five-0 reboot. In 2017 he appeared as insurance agent Anthony Sinclair in the third series of Twin Peaks.

Sizemore’s turbulent private life saw him acquire a reputation for violence and substance abuse. In 2003 he was convicted of domestic violence and criminal threats against his then girlfriend Heidi Fleiss and sentenced to six months in jail; he was again convicted of domestic abuse in 2017 and given three years’ probation. He was repeatedly arrested for drug use, and was sentenced to 16 months in jail in 2007 for possession of methamphetamine.

Sizemore was married to Maeve Quinlan between 1996 and 1999, and has two children.

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