Just heard over the AP wire that Jonathan Frakes' beard was found dead in his Los Angeles home at 5:00 PST.
While reports are sketchy, there is word from the Los Angeles county sheriff's department that the cause of death is suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning.
What, if any, connection this has with his breakup with actress Gweneth Paltrow (Emma, Sliding Doors), or the sharp decline in attendence his new film suffered this past weekend has yet to be determined.
This is not the first tragedy to strike the Star Trek family of late. In August, actor Spot (Star Trek: The Next Generation) was arrested for vandalizing a hotel room in Manhattan following an weekend-long drug binge. Also, actors George Takei and Walter Koenig (Sulu and Chekov, from the original series) were recently hospitalized for severe trauma to the testicular region following an attack by two women in Florida's trendy "South Beach" district.
Posted on Dec 22, 1998, 7:57 PM from IP address 207.172.226.98