Actor Verne Troyer, Austin Powers’ Mini-Me, dies at 49
LOS ANGELES — Verne Troyer, who was best known for his role as Mini-Me in the Austin Powers movies, has died at the age of 49.
“It is with great sadness and incredibly heavy hearts to write that Verne passed away,” a statement posted on Saturday on Troyer’s Facebook page said. No cause of death was given, but the statement discussed depression and suicide, and Troyer had publicly discussed struggling with alcohol addiction. He lived in Los Angeles.
Troyer, who starred in a number of commercials and films over the years, gained international fame as Mini-Me, a two-footeight version of Mike Myers’ Dr. Evil, in Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me and Austin Powers in Goldmember. Troyer rose to stardom in the late 1990s. The actor grew up in rural Michigan, where he said his parents treated him the same as his normal-size siblings. “I had to do everything they had to do,” Troyer told the Los Angeles Times in 1999.
Austin Powers director Jay Roach told the Times in 1999 he was awed by Troyer’s talents. “He’s not only an amazing stunt man and extremely agile, he can dance and he can act. He has a very expressive face and great comic timing.”
In 2008, he was at the centre of a legal dispute over a sex tape involving him and an ex-girlfriend.
Troyer was hospitalized this month after friends, concerned about his behaviour, called authorities.
He also had roles in 2001’s Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and another Mike Myers film, 2008’s The Love Guru.