Justin Pierce, who rose to notoriety as a skateboarding delinquent in the 1995 film Kids, was found hanged in a Las Vegas hotel room late on Monday night. Authorities said that they had found two suicide notes near the actor's body, and Clark county coroner Ron Flud confirmed that "hanging is the cause of death and the manner of death is suicide."
New Yorker Pierce, 25, was plucked out of obscurity by director Larry Clark, who cast him alongside Leo Fitzpatrick as one of a pair of hedonistic, juvenile tearaways in his controversial debut, Kids. The film was damned and praised in equal measure for its no-holds-barred look at teenage sex and violence and provided an attention-grabbing calling card for its two stars, young writer Harmony Korine and supporting actress Chloe Sevigny.
At the time of Kids' release it appeared that Pierce was the actor best placed for a successful follow-on career. But while Korine went on to become the enfant-terrible of indie film-making with his directoral debut Gummo, and Sevigny gained an Oscar-nomination this year for her role in the acclaimed Boys Don't Cry, Pierce's career never quite took off. At one stage during the making of Kids, Sevigny dated Pierce before moving on to Korine, who remains her regular off-screen partner.
Pierce, who was staying at the Bellagio resort, was in Las Vegas to work on a fashion shoot. He recently acted in the hit film Next Friday and the comedy Pigeonholed, opposite Rosanna Arquette.