Good-bye, Grasshopper

By R. Keith Rugg, 7-24-09

It’s a little tardy, but I wanted to note the passing of David Carradine, who died at age 72 on June 3 in Bangkok, Thailand, while on location for a film.

While not a country music artist, David Carradine carved out his spot in country-Western arts and culture with his role as Kwai Chang Caine in the 1970s ABC television series “Kung-Fu,” in which the orphaned son of an American man and a Chinese woman, trained in the martial arts of the Shaolin monks, wanders the Old West in search of his half-brother.  I can remember watching the show on the T.V. in my parents’ bedroom… because that’s the only place we could get Channel 11 from Missoula.  NBC on Channel 9 from Kalispell came in on our living room set.  (Other channels?  We didn’t get no other stinking channels…) The series is also notable for the many famous guest stars that were featured- some of the more interesting include Harrison Ford, Jodie Foster, Leslie Nelson, Barbara Hershey, Pat Morita, Don Johnson and William Shatner.

Carradine’s Caine in “Kung Fu” was only his second starring role in a career that included some 118 films, 32 plays, 27 television specials, and 3 series in which he was the featured lead.
Of country-Western interest among his works, there is the film “The Long Riders,” in which he appeared with brothers Keith and Robert, as well as several other big name stars, and his film debut in 1964 was in “Taggart,” based on the work of Louis L’Amour.

On television, he had appearances in such series as “Wagon Train,” “Gunsmoke,” “The Young Riders,” “The Virginian,” “Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman,” and his first starring role in a series was as the title character in the series “Shane,” based on the classic Western movie.

“Kung Fu” pretty much became Carradine’s thing, though, for the rest of his life, with several spin-off projects, and several other roles in which he played some sort of Asian martial arts master, such as his appearances in Quentin Tarantino’s “Kill Bill” movies, the movie “Crank: High Voltage,” and the Jonas Brothers’ “Burnin’ Up” video.

In addition to being overseas in Bangkok for work on a film at the time of his death, Carradine apparently also has six other 2009 films currently in post-production, and another 2009 film that has been completed, but not yet released.