RIP Chris Penn, 1962-2006

This picture of Chris Penn in all his hairy-chested glory is more flattering than the one on his IMDB page that has already been used on one of the first sites to report his death. I first saw it reported on MTV News in a brief rundown of minor stories earlier tonight, and it wasn’t until an hour or so later than Google News turned up something. No word yet on cause of death, but dude was only 43.

Top 10 Reasons Chris Penn was awesome:

1. He handled being the 3rd most famous Penn brother with grace and humility. Or maybe he was a bitter, egotistical ass, I don’t really know.

2. He was in Rush Hour, but I tend to think of him more for his appearance as a bartender in the video from the movie’s soundtrack for Jay-Z’s “Can I Get A…”.

3. His other notable music video role was in Sublime’s “Date Rape” video, as the titular date rapist.

4. Cribbed from his IMDB page: “Is in three different movies with close-range shootout scenes at the end (Reservoir Dogs (1992), True Romance (1993), and Corky Romano (2001)).”

5. He filmed a scene in True Romance right after Michael Madsen’s rottweiler ripped his throat out.

6. Also cribbed from IMDB: “Originally had role in American Pie 2 (2001) as Stiffler’s dad but the scenes were cut since they were not deemed to fit in with the original movie.” Stifler’s dad! Can you imagine that? Mabye if they hadn’t cut him, he’d have gotten a spot in the straight-to-DVD American Pie Presents Band Camp with that kid who played Stifler’s brother.

OK, six reasons is enough. One love, CP.