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"Kung Fu" and "Kill Bill" star David Carradine was found dead in a Bangkok hotel room on Thursday, police said.

His personal manager, Chuck Binder, was quoted by People Magazine as saying that the death was "shocking and sad. He was full of life, always wanting to work ... a great person."

American actor Carradine, 72, was in Bangkok to shoot his latest movie, Stretch, and stayed at a Suite Room 352 of the Park Nai Lert Hotel on Wireless Road since June 2.

The film crew were aware of his absence when they went to dine out at a restaurant on Sathorn Road on June 3.

Carradine did not show up at the dinner and the team could not reach him. They assumed that he took a rest because of his age.

It was a hotel's maid who opened his suite on Thursday at 10 am after her repeated calls at the door were unanswered. She found Carradine in a closet. He was described as being half naked.

Police said evidence at the scene showed that he hung himself.

"It looks like a suicide," said Pol Col Somprasong Yentuam, chief of Lumpini police. "He was a big man and it would have been difficult for someone to move him in there and kill him in there."

Police said he was dead for not less than 12 hours and found no sign of fighting, or intrusion or assaults.

Somprasong said security at the hotel was very good. American Embassy officials had also been to the scene, police sources said.

Police said an autopsy was being conducted at a Bangkok hospital, but no results will be available for another day.

Police provided Carradine's family with the same information about their investigation, said Tiffany Smith, Carradine's personal co-manager, quoted in the CNN website.

Smith said she was "in complete shock" and that suggestions that Carradine took his own life are unbelievable.

"Knowing David, he would never commit suicide," and his death comes at a time when his "career is on a roll," she said.

Kung Fu Man

Aside from Quentin Tarantino's two-part "Kill Bill" in 2003 and 2004, Carradine was perhaps best known for his role as the fugitive half-Chinese Shaolin monk Kwai Chang Caine in the 1970s easternwestern TV drama "Kung Fu". He also starred in Martin Scorsese's "Boxcar Bertha" in 1972, portrayed folksinger Woody Guthrie in "Bound for Glory" in 1976, acted in Ingmar Bergman's "The Serpent's Egg" in  1977 and co-starred with half brothers Keith Carradine and Robert Carradine in the 1980 western "The Long Riders".

His father was the noted actor John Carradine.

In Thai cinemas, Carradine was recently seen as a martial arts guru in the Rob Schneider comedy "Big Stan" and as a perverted elderly Chinese mobster in "Crank: High Voltage" starring Jason Statham.

Carradine, who was married five times and divorced four, is survived by his widow, Annie Bierman, according to People magazine.  

"David's career as an artist did not begin on the stage, though some of his early career was on and off Broadway. His earliest work was as a sculptor and painter," Carradine's official Web site says.

"Working against my genes"

Carradine was nominated for a Golden Globe for his role as folk music legend Woody Guthrie in the 1976 movie "Bound For Glory," according to a biography on his official Web site.

Carradine's official Web site includes an "Art Bio" in which the actor opens up about his life.

"I've always had an especially hard time with everything I've tried to do," Carradine wrote.

"I've made it pretty big as an actor in spite of being terminally shy. ... Invariably, I had huge obstacles to overcome in anything I tried. Had to work against my genes to achieve my dreams."