Triumph, tumult, tragedy

영화 배우 데이비드 캐래딘이 방콕의 한 호텔에서 숨진 채로 발견되었다. 스스로 목숨을 끊었을 가능성이 커 보인다.  배우로써, 한 인간으로써 그 삶 가운데 우여곡절이 많았다. 순탄한 날도 있었고 그렇지 못한 날도 있었다. 결혼을 다섯 번이나 하였을 정도이니 삶이 순탄치 않았음을 쉽게 알 수 있다. 어떤 인생이건 마냥 평안하고 순탄하게 산다는 건 쉽지 않은 일일 터.

마음의 평안을 얻는 길을 터득했더라면 극단의 선택은 하지 않아도 되지 않았을까하는 아쉬움이 크다. 노무현 전 대통령의 일로 마음이 아프던 터에 또 다른 자살 소식이 우리를 안타깝게 한다.

삶에는 우여곡절이 있을 수밖에 없다. 맑고 화창한 날이 있는가 하면 비바람 눈보라 치는 날이 있다. 이런 날들은 참고 참으며 기다리면 반드시 지나간다. 얼마 되지 않아 언제 그랬느냐는 듯 맑고 화창한 날로 다시 돌아오는 것이다.

그 누구든 삶 자체가 근본적으로 헛되고 헛된 것일지도 모른다. 그러므로 어떻게 의미를 부여하고 사느냐가 중요하지 않을까. 작더라도 이웃에 기쁨을 전하며, 다른 사람을 도우며 사는 삶 속에 평안과 평화가 있다. 욕심을 내어 자신만을 위하고 다른 사람 마음에 상처를 주고 살면 그건 곧 자신에게 상처를 주는 입히는 일이리라.

작은 일에 감사하며 감격할 줄 아는 삶이 잘 사는 삶 일지도 모르겠다. 떠오르는 태양을 바라보며 감사하고, 잠자리에서 일어나 맑게 떠오르는 태양을 바라보며 감격하고, 화분에 물을 주면서 꽃과 식물이 좋아하는 모습을 보는 것을 즐기는 건 어떤가. 둥지를 깨고 나와 하루하루 몸집을 불려가는 어린 새들의 모습을 보면서 생명의 경이를 체험하는 기쁨 또한 크지 아니할까.

작고 보잘 것 없는 일에 행복을 찾을 줄 아는 마음이 어쩌면 가난한 마음이리라. 마음이 가난한 자는 복이 있으니 천국이 저희 것이라 한 성경말씀도 있지 아니한가. 작은 것으로 만족하는 삶을 살았으면 좋겠다. 

 

Television icon David Carradine was found dead yesterday, an apparent suicide, discovered by a maid in a hotel-room wardrobe with a curtain cord wrapped tightly around his naked body and neck.

The 72-year-old actor was in Bangkok, Thailand, filming a movie, Stretch.

Carradine's agent, Chuck Binder, suggested the death might be accidental rather than suicide.

"I do not believe he is a candidate for suicide," he said. "He had a family. He had a life. He was happy."

It was an ignominious end for a man so indelibly, if fictionally, perceived as heroic – even though his tumultuous off-screen life was anything but.

Carradine spoke candidly about his frequent thoughts of suicide in 2004: "There was a period in my life when I had a single-action Colt .45, loaded, in my desk drawer," The Telegraph quoted him as saying. "And every night I'd take it out and think about blowing my head off."

He was the eldest son of an acting dynasty that began with his father, John, and was carried on by siblings David, Keith and Robert, and then into the next generation by Robert's daughter, Ever Carradine, and Keith's daughter, Martha Plimpton.

David Carradine initially broke out on Broadway in The Deputy and, opposite Christopher Plummer, Royal Hunt of the Sun.

But 1972 marked a pivotal transition, when he was hired by fledgling filmmaker Martin Scorsese to co-star in Boxcar Bertha opposite Barbara Hershey, with whom he fathered a son, Tom.

That same year he was cast as the reluctant warrior priest of Kung Fu, the hit martial-arts drama that would make him a household name. Though he had no prior martial arts training, shooting the series inspired in him a keen and enduring interest in eastern disciplines and philosophies.

When the series ended in 1975, Carradine went on to prestigious lead roles in the Woody Guthrie biopic Bound for Glory and Ingmar Bergman's The Serpent's Egg.

Shortly thereafter, stories began to circulate of destructive, irresponsible, volatile behaviour, fuelled by drug and alcohol abuse.

Carradine's notoriety grew as his career went into decline, until 1992, when he was cast as his own grandson in a sequel series, Kung Fu: The Legend Continues, shot in Toronto.

His reputation worsened here, and stories still circulate of his on-set antics and the fact all his action scenes had to be shot in the morning before he started falling all over himself.

Another 10 years of notoriety and little work ended in 2004 when he was cast by Quentin Tarantino as the "Bill" of Kill Bill, a two-part action epic that revived his career.

His last released film was this year's Crank: High Voltage.

One of his five marriages lasted from 1998 to 2001 to sometime Toronto resident Marina Anderson, a.k.a. Coco d'Este, who, as his manager and publicist, takes credit for landing him the role in Kill Bill and for nursing him through a brief period of sobriety.

He is survived by son Tom and daughters Calista and Kansas.

<HIGHLIGHTS OF DAVID CARRADINE'S CAREER>

• Shane, 1966 TV series

• Shaolin monk Kwai Chang Caine in the 1972-1975 TV series Kung Fu

• "Big" Bill Shelly in Boxcar Bertha, 1972 movie directed by Martin Scorsese

• Best actor award from the National Board of Review and Golden Globe nomination for portrayal of Woody Guthrie in Bound for Glory, 1976

• The Serpent's Egg, 1977, directed by Ingmar Bergman

• Cole Younger in The Long Riders, 1980, directed by Walter Hill

• North and South, 1985, TV miniseries

• Directed, starred in Americana, 1983

• Kung Fu: The Movie, 1986

• Kung Fu: The Legend Continues, 1993-97

• Kill Bill: Vol. I, 2003 and Kill Bill: Vol. II, 2004, directed by Quentin Tarantino

(Source: Toronto star Jun 05, 2009 page A4)