David Carradine

Born: December 8 1936
Where: Hollywood, California, USA

Carradine is probably best known to British audiences as Grasshopper in Kung Fu before Quentin Tarantino resurrected his career with the title role in Kill Bill.

Originally developed for martial arts master Bruce Lee, Carradine worked on the iconic TV series, which garnered seven Emmy awards, before giving it up for the big screen.

The eldest son of character actor John Carradine, he studied music theory at San Francisco State College.

After a two-year stint in the army, he worked in New York as a commercial artist before taking to the stage in The Royal Hunt of the Sun.

TV roles followed in Shane before he appeared opposite Barbara Hershey in Martin Scorcese's first Hollywood film Boxcar Bertha.

After Kung Fu, Carradine received a Golden Globe nomination for his portrayal of Woody Guthrie in Hal Ashby's Bound for Glory.

He also won critical acclaim for Walter Hill's The Long Riders and won the People's Prize at Cannes for his directorial debut Americana.

Other notable film credits include Scorcese's Mean Streets, Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye, Ingmar Bergman's The Serpent's Egg and Gray Lady Down.

Decent roles have been rare in the last decade with a heavy reliance on TV movies until Tarantino cast him as the chief assassin Bill in both parts of the bloody saga.