By Andrew Blankstein and Richard Winton, Los Angeles Times –
LOS ANGELES — Director Tony Scott was not suffering from cancer and did not have any serious underlying medical conditions — including cancer — 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 in Los Angeles on Aug. 19. The director also had therapeutic levels of the sleep aid Lunestra and the antidepressant Mirtazipine, also known as Remeron, in his system, according to results of toxicology tests.
Harvey told the Los Angeles Times that investigators found no pre-existing conditions in Scott, based on both the autopsy and medical records.
“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 had told the Times that the director had mentioned back or hip problems in the months prior to 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 “Unstoppable” said. “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.”
