Last week, actor Todd Blue — better known as Tiger King in the Disney Channel series The Suite Life of Zack and Cody — died at the age of 58, according to his friend Tony Maalouf.
Family and friends who attended to Blue were shocked to learn of his untimely death, since the actor had appeared in more than 10 films over the years. He was involved in the film Take the Lead in 2005, and the 2015 thriller Night Trap. Most recently, he had finished his role in the upcoming movie Frozen 2.
The Suite Life of Zack and Cody, which premiered in 2004, starred Dylan Sprouse, Cole Sprouse, Landon Liboiron, and Ashlee Simpson as young teens trying to navigate the weird culture of upper middle class Southern California. The series premiered to very high ratings, and two more sequels followed. Blue appeared as the character Tiger King — a nerdy nerd who struggled to maintain his integrity as a leading man — from its second season until the show’s fifth, though he never appeared in the finale, which featured a finale in which the core characters became adults.
Reached by telephone, Maalouf, who knew Blue from the Los Angeles theater scene, described the actor as “always happy, always interested, never a mood that felt that he wasn’t having a good time.”
“He never got worked up about anything,” he added. “He was an easygoing guy. He was the kind of guy who never gave me a hard time.”
Maalouf also stated that the actor’s death was “absolutely unrelated to drugs,” insisting that “no one who knows him” would believe that.
“It’s a sad loss for the theater community,” he said. “I will miss him for a very long time.”
Read the full story at the L.A. Times.
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