The troubled actor had been shot in Harlem last year.
Leo O'Brien, star of the cult classic film The Last Dragon, has died. He was 41. Friends of the actor confirmed he passed away on Wednesday in New York City, but the cause of his death has not been released. O'Brien's friend and former castmate Taimak Guarriello did say, however, that he had been "having a little problem" lately.
O'Brien was shot three times in Harlem last year after a dispute with an acquaintance turned violent. “I’m a fast healer, kind of a mutant,” he told the New York Daily News at the time. “I’ve been told if this happened to someone else, they’d be dead.”
The troubled actor recently tried to resurrect his acting career with Guarriello, his co-star from the 1985 Berry Gordy-produced martial arts film. The old friends reunited when Guarriello visited O'Brien in the hospital following the shooting last year. "He was very talented," says Guarriello. "It wasn't like he lost his talent."
"I think people should remember him as the talent that he was," he adds. "He was a sweetheart and he had a good sense of humor."
O'Brien is survived by his son Drew O'Brien, who took to Facebook to mourn his late father: “R.I.P to my father Leo Obrien. You will be dearly missed. I love you.”
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