ROBERT CARRADINE
(24 March 1954 – 23 February 2026)
Robert Carradine has taken his own life at the age of 71 after struggling with bipolar disorder for almost twenty years. Robert’s parents divorced when he was two years old, leading to his father John obtaining custody of Robert and his brothers Christopher and Keith. Robert was mainly brought up by his father’s third wife Doris Grimshaw and he lived in Laurel Canyon, California, with his half-brother David Carradine who encouraged him in his interest in music and motor racing. The two boys worked with a quartet playing nightclubs in Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Robert Reed Carradine was born in Los Angeles where he made his debut in 1971 in the TV Western Bonanza. Also on television, he played Hilary Duff’s dad Sam McGuire in Disney’s long-running sitcom Lizzie McGuire, which dealt with adolescents’ problems and, in 2003, spawned The Lizzie McGuire Movie.
Robert Carradine made his film debut in Mark Rydell’s The Cowboys (1972) with John Wayne and Bruce Dern. The film also became a TV series but not for long. He then had a role as a killer in Martin Scorsese’s iconic Mean Streets in which he murders a character played by his half-brother David. After further small roles he was Bobby Ray in Jackson County Jail with Tommy Lee Jones and Yvette Mimieux and then appeared with David Carradine in Paul Bartel’s Cannonball (or Carquake in the UK) about an illegal cross continent road race, something Robert had longed to do – car racing. When not filming, Robert took part many times in the 24 Hours of Daytona Race. He worked with David again on other projects, a biker film, an unreleased musical and was a cameraman on David’s Americana, about the Vietnam War. He was also in another Vietnam subject, Coming Home (1978), Hal Ashby’s drama about soldiers returning from war, which won both Jane Fonda and Jon Voight Oscars. The year before he had been in Orca, a Jaws-type thriller with Richard Harris, Charlotte Rampling and Bo Derek.
He was then in Walter Hill’s 1980 Western The Long Riders with both David and Keith Carradine and other ‘pairs’ in Stacy and James Keach, Dennis and Randy Quaid, Christopher and Nicholas Guest as well as Ever Carradine, Robert’s own daughter. The Big Red One was Samuel Fuller’s WWII epic with Lee Marvin and Mark Hamill, with Robert as a cartoonist, Private Zab. Carradine wasn’t noted only for his dramatic roles as, on his silly side, he was good at crazy comedy, hence the cult hit Revenge of the Nerds in 1984, highlighting the antics of the least appealing male students of Adams College. There were three sequels and then he hosted the reality TV show King of the Nerds (2013-2015) on cable.
Carradine never seemed to be short of work and continued to appear in popular films – Fancypants, Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained and the Western thriller The Night They Came Home (2024) with seven more features still due for release.
Robert Carradine was married twice, first to Edith Mani from 1990 to 2018 and with whom he had a son, Ian; and then to Susan Snyder with whom he fathered daughters Ever and Marika. Robert’s death was recorded as suicide by hanging.
MICHAEL DARVELL