American actor Patrick Muldoon, best known for starring in TV shows Days of Our Lives and Melrose Place and in films like Starship Troopers, died at 57. Deadline reported that the actor died on Sunday, April 19, following a heart attack, and the actor’s manager confirmed the death to Variety.
Muldoon was born in San Pedro, California, on Sept. 27, 1968. After graduating from the University of Southern California in 1991, he was cast in Saved by the Bell for a three-episode arc, where his character was infamously the catalyst for Zack and Kelly’s breakup. He went on to join popular soap opera Days of Our Lives as Austin Reed, a role he embodied from 1992 to 1995 and again from September 2011 to July 2012. He also played recurring character Richard Hart on Melrose Place for three seasons in the mid-’90s.
In 1997, Muldoon starred in Paul Verhoeven’s beloved sci-film Starship Troopers alongside Casper Van Dien, Denise Richards, and Neil Patrick Harris. He continued working throughout the ’90s and ’00s, appearing in films like Born to Ride, Spiders 3D and Saving Christmas. He also had a fruitful career in dramatic made-for-TV movies like Deadly Revenge and His Secret Past.
Muldoon once said he wasn’t focused on a particular thing in a role or project, but instead looked at what he could gain from the experience.
“I tend to look at things backwards,” he said in 2012. “When you get a part there is something going on within that character. There is a question that the character is living at that time. There is probably something you need to look at from your own personal life. As things come to you I kind of look at it on a spiritual tip a little bit. Whatever obstacle that character has to face somehow I am being asked to look at that in my own life. In order to be able to play the part you have to look at it from your own life. That is generally what I pay attention to when a part comes across the desk.”
Muldoon executive produced numerous projects, including The Tribes of Palos Verdes, Arkansas, Marlowe, The Card Counter, The Dreadful, and Riff Raff. Most recently, he produced Kockroach, which stars Chris Hemsworth, Taron Egerton, and Zazie Beetz, and is currently filming.
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Alongside acting, Muldoon was the lead singer of the Sleeping Masses, a band he formed with Neil Ives. The group’s 2009 track “The Woman Is the Way” appeared in film Powder Blue and MTV show The Hills.
Muldoon’s latest film, crime thriller Dirty Hands, which co-stars Denise Richards and Michael Beach, is slated to be released on April 24.
