Robert Carradine

Robert Reed Carradine was born on March 24, 1954, in Los Angeles, California, the son of the actor John Carradine and the actress and artist Sonia Sorel (born Henius). His full brothers were Christopher Carradine, who became an architect and Disney Imagineer, and the actor Keith Carradine. He also had two paternal half-brothers, the actors David Carradine and Bruce Carradine, and a maternal half-brother, the actor Michael Bowen. Through his mother he was a great-grandson of the Danish-American biochemist Max Henius.

His parents divorced when he was two. During a bitter custody dispute, Robert, Keith and Christopher spent about three months in a children's home as wards of the court, and their father eventually won custody. Robert was raised largely by his stepmother, Doris Grimshaw, John Carradine's third wife, and later said he believed she was his mother until he met Sonia Sorel at a Christmas party at the age of 14. Doris Grimshaw died in 1971.

While still in high school he lived on and off with David in Laurel Canyon. Under David's influence he pursued race car driving, which he had loved since racing go-karts at 11, and music, and the brothers played together in a small group that performed in clubs in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Carradine attended Hollywood High School in Los Angeles but left before graduating to make his film debut in The Cowboys (1972). He had no formal acting training and, by his own account, never learned to read music, although he played guitar for the rest of his life. To prepare for Revenge of the Nerds he went through fraternity rush week at the University of Arizona; no fraternity chose him, which he took as proof he was right for the part.

Carradine's first screen appearances came in 1971 and 1972 in television westerns, including the Bonanza episode A Home for Jamie and the Kung Fu episode Dark Angel, in which he played a mute companion to a character played by his father opposite his brother David.

His film debut was The Cowboys (1972), starring John Wayne, after David told him he had "everything to gain, and nothing to lose" by auditioning. He reprised the role of Slim in a short-lived 1974 television series. He then played the young gunman who shoots David's character in Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets (1973), worked with David on independent projects including You and Me and the unreleased musical A Country Mile, and played the winning driver in Paul Bartel's Cannonball (1976). He also appeared in Orca (1977), Joyride (1977) and Hal Ashby's Coming Home (1978), in which he played a suicidal Vietnam veteran opposite Jane Fonda, Jon Voight and Bruce Dern.

In 1980 he had two films at Cannes: Walter Hill's The Long Riders, in which he, David and Keith played the Younger brothers, and Samuel Fuller's The Big Red One, in which he played Private Zab, the Fuller-like narrator, alongside Lee Marvin and Mark Hamill. In 1983 he starred opposite Cherie Currie in the science fiction film Wavelength, performing several of his own songs.

Revenge of the Nerds (1984) made him a star of 1980s comedy as Lewis Skolnick. He returned in Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise (1987), Revenge of the Nerds III: The Next Generation (1992) and Revenge of the Nerds IV: Nerds in Love (1994), serving as a producer on the later television films. Other work from the period included the miniseries The Sun Also Rises (1984), Conspiracy: The Trial of the Chicago 8 (1987), Number One with a Bullet (1987), a cameo as himself in Robert Altman's The Player (1992), The Tommyknockers (1993), Body Bags (1993) and Escape from L.A. (1996).

From 2001 to 2004 he played Sam McGuire in the Disney Channel series Lizzie McGuire, appearing in 65 episodes and directing one, and he reprised the role in The Lizzie McGuire Movie (2003). He also played Don Keeble in Max Keeble's Big Move (2001), appeared in Ghosts of Mars (2001), guest starred in ER, NYPD Blue, The Practice and Law and Order: Criminal Intent, and played a tracker in Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained (2012).

From 2013 to 2015 he co-hosted and executive produced the TBS reality competition King of the Nerds with Curtis Armstrong. He kept working steadily in independent and genre films into his seventies, and several of his final films, including The Cowboy Killer, Night of the Rising Dead and Sorority Shark Attack, were released or scheduled for release after his death. In his later years he also co-hosted the Revenge of the Party Nerds Pop-Cast.

In 1974 Carradine had a daughter, the actress Ever Carradine, with Susan Snyder. He raised Ever largely as a single father, and Deadline recalled that she used to ride David's former movie horse, Z-Tan, along Mulholland Drive near the family home in the Hollywood Hills. In the 1970s he dated the actress Jamie Lee Curtis, who after his death described him as her first love and said that with him and Ever "we became a little family".

In 1990 he married Edith "Edie" Mani, and they had two children, Marika and Ian. The couple filed for divorce in 2015 and the divorce was finalized in 2018. He was a grandfather to Ever's sons Chaplin and Sam and to Marika's son Jack, and an uncle to the actress Martha Plimpton, who called him everyone's favorite uncle.

Outside acting his great loves were music and motor racing. He played guitar with Keith and David at the Sheridan Opera House in Telluride, Colorado, where he and Keith had homes, performed with Peter Yarrow and Ramblin' Jack Elliott, and in the late 1980s had a band called The Waybacks with Mare Winningham. He raced at a high level in the 1980s and 1990s, including several runs at the 24 Hours of Daytona, and competed in quick draw events under the alias Bob Younger.

Carradine spoke candidly about his ambivalence toward acting, saying he never wanted to be an actor and that racing was his true love because winning a race meant no one was better than him. His family described him as kind, funny, wise, "utterly accepting and tolerant" and incapable of holding a grudge.

After his death his family chose to speak openly about his nearly two decade struggle with bipolar disorder. Their statement said they hoped his journey could "shine a light and encourage addressing the stigma that attaches to mental illness", and Keith Carradine said there was "no shame in it".

Carradine's Lewis Skolnick became one of the defining comic characters of the 1980s, and Revenge of the Nerds grew into a franchise of four films and later inspired King of the Nerds, which he hosted. For viewers who grew up in the 2000s, his warm portrayal of Sam McGuire made him one of the best remembered television fathers of the era. Many tributes noted that he had effectively been a star to two separate generations.

As a member of the Carradine acting dynasty, he appeared alongside his father and brothers on screen, most famously in The Long Riders, and his daughter Ever and niece Martha Plimpton continued the family's work in film and television. His family's decision to discuss his bipolar disorder publicly drew wide attention to mental illness and suicide prevention.

In 1998 Carradine was honoured at the 16th Golden Boot Awards, which recognise contributions to western film and television, reflecting his work in The Cowboys, The Long Riders and other westerns. Several of his films were themselves major award winners, including Coming Home (1978), which won three Academy Awards, and Django Unchained (2012), which won two.

Carradine appeared as himself in Robert Altman's Hollywood satire The Player (1992), on the E! True Hollywood Story episode about David Carradine, on Celebrity Ghost Stories (2013) and on Celebrity Wife Swap (2015) opposite the football player Terrell Owens. He voiced Lewis Skolnick in a 2008 episode of Robot Chicken and appeared as the love interest in The Motels' 1983 music video for Suddenly Last Summer. He also attended fan conventions and anniversary panels for Revenge of the Nerds, including a 40th anniversary panel in 2024.

In 2015 Carradine and his then wife Edith Mani were injured when their car hit a truck in Colorado, and he was cited and fined. During divorce proceedings in 2017, Mani alleged in court documents that he had told her he drove into the truck deliberately in an attempt to kill them both. Carradine acknowledged he had been in a "psychotic state" at the time and attributed his worsening mental illness to depression after David Carradine's death in 2009.

In August 2026 his family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against UCLA, alleging that staff at the psychiatric hospital where he had admitted himself failed to take basic safety precautions.

According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner's report, as reported by People and TMZ, Carradine voluntarily admitted himself to UCLA's Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital on January 16, 2026, because of ongoing suicidal thoughts. The next day staff found him unresponsive and in cardiac arrest after a suicide attempt. He was resuscitated and treated in intensive care, but his condition declined and he died on February 23, 2026, in Los Angeles, aged 71.

His family announced his death to Deadline that day, saying "Bobby was always a beacon of light to everyone around him" and acknowledging "his nearly two-decade battle with bipolar disorder". On February 27, 2026, the medical examiner ruled the manner of death suicide, with the cause listed as the effects of an anoxic brain injury. Tributes came from Hilary Duff, Hallie Todd, Jamie Lee Curtis, his daughter Ever and many others. Public details of a funeral or resting place were not made public.

If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, in the US you can call or text 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be reached on 116 123.