Saving Private Ryan actor Tom Sizemore dies at 61 after brain aneurysm

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The Saving Private Ryan and Black Hawk Down star, Tom Sizemore, died at 61, his manager Charles Lago announced. 

The US actor rose to fame in the 1990s, often playing supporting roles as tough guys - usually military, police, or criminal. Other movies included Natural Born Killers, Pearl Harbor, and Heat.

The actor reportedly also had drug problems and served jail time for domestic violence.

After suffering a ruptured brain aneurysm, he went into a coma on February 18. His manager reported that he died on Friday at a hospital in Burbank, California, with his brother Paul and twin boys Jayden and Jagger, 17, at his side. "The Sizemore family has been comforted by the hundreds of messages of support," Lago said.

He said Sizemore's sons were devastated and asked that their privacy be respected.

His brother, Paul Sizemore, said, "I am deeply saddened by the loss of my big brother Tom. He was larger than life. He has influenced my life more than anyone I know. "He was talented, loving, giving and could keep you entertained endlessly with his wit and storytelling ability."

Coming from a working-class area of Detroit, Sizemore obtained a master's degree in theatre before going to Hollywood for a role in Oliver Stone's Born on the Fourth of July in 1989. That role led to more prominent roles in 1990s dramas such as Ridley Scott's True Romance, Devil in a Blue Dress opposite Denzel Washington, and the biopic Wyatt Earp alongside Kevin Costner.

Stone cast him again in the controversial Natural Born Killers as the violent Detective Jack Scagnetti; and played a henchman to Robert De Niro's criminal in Heat.

In 1998,he played in the Oscar-winning film Saving Private Ryan at Tom Hanks' side as the loyal Sergeant Horvath. He was nominated for a Golden Globe for playing a mobster in the 1999 TV movie Witness Protection and was the voice of mafia boss Sonny Forelli in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City in 2022. But with fame and money, the actor drowned in a heavy drug habit and wrote in his autobiography about his addiction to heroin and crystal meth. 

He recounted how De Niro pushed him into one of his stints in rehab in 1995, telling Sizemore he would have him "arrested for heroin possession" if he didn't go into a treatment center. Sizemore chose rehab.

Shooting Sizemore, a 2007 documentary series, chronicled his efforts to reclaim his life and career.
While he never regained the roles of the '90s, in recent years he made a guest appearance in the Netflix hit Cobra Kai and had a recurring role in the 2017 revival of David Lynch's cult TV show Twin Peaks.