Emmy winner Dana Delany was there in 1989 when Tom Sizemore — who died Friday at 61 — broke out on her Emmy winning series, “China Beach.” As Sizemore went through decades of scandal– drugs, jail, trials, divorce, all kinds of accusations and allegations — she always held a soft spot for him.
As “China Beach” hit (he was there for Season 3) he also started popping up in movies. First was “BOrn on the Fourth of July.” Over a decade he appeared in more and more hits like “Saving Private Ryan,” “Natural Born Killers,” “Heat,” and so on. But by the mid to late 2000s, he was a tabloid wreck, constantly getting headlines for the wrong reasons.
Sizemore was, for a while, a character actor you looked forward to seeing on screen. But starting around 2009 his legal and personal problems killed his mainstream career. He started appearing in dozens of straight to video B movies. His one comeback was briefly in 2017 when he recurred on the “Twin Peaks” revival. But he could never overcome the Wild Man image. Dating “Hollywood Madam” Heidi Fleiss didn’t help.
Delany writes on Twitter, showing pictures of the actor when he was young: “This is the Tom I choose to remember. So young & full of dreams. He wanted to be DeNiro. I said, but why? You’re already Richard Burton. In many ways, he was.”
Rest in peace.
This is the Tom I choose to remember. So young & full of dreams. He wanted to be DeNiro. I said, but why? You’re already Richard Burton. In many ways, he was. pic.twitter.com/hPDk1YsJ6O
— Dana Delany (@DanaDelany) March 4, 2023
