THE death of actor David Carradine appears to have been caused by a sex act gone wrong, with police saying he was found hanged with a rope tied around his neck and genitals.

The US actor was found dead in the closet of his luxury Bangkok hotel room overnight. He was 72.

Thai police told The Sun the actor was found with a curtain rope tied around his neck and genitals.

They would neither confirm nor deny suggestions that Carradine was attempting auto-erotic asphyxiation, a practice designed to boost sexual pleasure.

Police said they were alerted to the death of the actor, who won fame as the wandering monk in the Kung Fu television series, yesterday.

"He was found hanging by a rope in the room's closet," Lieutenant Colonel Pirom Jantrapirom of the Lumpini police station in Bangkok said.


Carradine's body was naked when it was found and there were no signs of other people in the room, Lt Col Pirom said. The body has been sent to a hospital for an autopsy.

A representative for Carradine said the actor would not have commited suicide.

"We can confirm 100 per cent that he never would have committed suicide. It was an accidental death. Everybody is in shock," the representative told TMZ.com.

Carradine's death has similarities to the death of INXS frontman Michael Hutchence.

Hutchence died at Sydney's Ritz-Carlton hotel in November 1997, with the NSW coroner ruling he had committed suicide.

But some of those closest to him, including his brother, believe he accidentally strangled himself during a sex act .

Lori Binder, a representative for Carradine's Los Angeles-based talent manager, said the actor was in Thailand to shoot a film called Stretch. She declined to give further details of his death while it was under investigation.

Carradine, from a family of performers and the eldest son of well-known character actor John Carradine, enjoyed a long career on Broadway, US television and in movies such as director Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill: Vol. 1 and Kill Bill: Vol. 2.

He was born John Arthur Carradine on December 8, 1936, in Los Angeles and educated at San Francisco State University, where he studied music theory and composition.

While writing music for the drama department's annual revues, he discovered his own passion for the stage, joining a Shakespearean repertory company.

After working on Broadway in The Deputy and The Royal Hunt of the Sun opposite Christopher Plummer, Carradine earned a spot on Hollywood's map in the 1960s in TV westerns such as Wagon Train and The Virginian as well as his starring role in a TV version of hit western movie Shane.

But it was the role of Kwai Chang Caine, the wandering monk in Kung Fu, that earned the actor his greatest fame.

The series aired on US television starting in 1972 and immediately won a large base of fans of the half-Asian martial arts expert and student of life as he traveled through America's Old West.

The show spawned a movie and numerous other offshoots. Overall, Carradine's credits include more than 200 roles in movies, TV, video and DVD spanning nearly five decades.

His role as Caine in Kung Fu earned him a nomination for an Emmy, and his turn as the villainous Bill in Kill Bill: Vol. 2 led to his fourth Golden Globe nomination.

He also won critical acclaim for portraying folk singing legend Woody Guthrie in the Oscar-nominated 1976 film Bound for Glory.

Carradine was married five times and had two daughters from previous marriages. His latest wife was Annie Bierman, whom he married in 2004. His brothers include the actor Keith Carradine.