Tony Scott had no illness at time of suicide, coroner finds
Director Tony Scott was not suffering from cancer and did not have any serious underlying medical conditions at the time of his suicide, chief coroner investigator Craig Harvey said.
Los Angeles County coroner’s officials released their final cause of death in the 68-year-old’s suicide, finding that he died of multiple blunt-force injuries after leaping from the Vincent Thomas Bridge on Aug. 19. The director also had therapeutic levels of the sleep aid Lunestra and the anti-depressant Mirtazipine, also known as Remeron, in his system, according to results of toxicology tests.
Harvey told The Times that investigators found no pre-existing conditions in Scott, based on both the autopsy and medical records.
FULL COVERAGE: Tony Scott | 1944-2012
“There was no evidence of neoplasia — cancer — identified,” Harvey said.
After Scott’s death, some media reports quoted an anonymous source suggesting that Scott had a brain tumor. His family vehemently denied those reports.
His family has not offered any public explanation as to why he took his own life. The coroner’s findings also do not help untangle the mystery.
Harvey said investigators interviewed Scott’s family, but the discussion shed no light on the suicide.
Several of Scott’s associates told The Times that the director had mentioned back or hip problems in the months before his death, but many said they had no indication it was anything other than business as normal for the director-producer.
“In a million years, this isn’t something I’d have thought he’d do,” Mark Bomback, a writer on Scott’s movie “Unstoppable,” said at the time. “I never had an inkling he had any health problems.... You’d think he was making his first film from his level of energy and enthusiasm.”
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