Actor Chris Penn, younger brother of Sean and best remembered as Nice Guy Eddie Cabot in Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs, was found dead at his Santa Monica home yesterday. He was 40, according to police, although most reports put his age as 43.
Penn's body was discovered in bed inside his apartment, located in a four-storey condominium complex near the beach, by his housekeeper. Police said they were investigating the cause of death but stated that there were no obvious signs of foul play.
In a career spanning more than two decades, Chris Penn carved a niche for himself as a steady, journeyman actor, finding regular work on film and television playing working-class, regular-Joe characters. With his hefty build and protruding chin, he was a natural for playing characters on both sides of the law, moving easily between roles as small-time crooks caught in a bind to conflicted cops struggling with their consciences.
He started acting and performing as a child and appeared in such iconic teen films of the early 80s as All the Right Moves and Rumble Fish. His big break came in 1984 when he played Kevin Bacon's charming but leaden-footed chum in Footloose, but arguably his best-known role was as the disturbingly funny Nice Guy Eddie in Tarantino's highly stylised shoot-em-up in 1992. Penn also made a mark as part of the ensemble cast of Robert Altman's acclaimed 1993 drama, Short Cuts.
In recent years he had been relegated to playing a series of sidekick roles in such films as Starsky & Hutch and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. His latest film, The Darwin Awards, a black comedy about unusual suicides, was scheduled to premiere today at the Sundance film festival.