Such a shame if his death was a murder or a suicide. He was always cool with me since as a child of the Seventies and Eighties, David was Caine, the ass-kicking buddhist monk who turned the dying TV Western genre on its ear. I recall my parents not letting me watch the show during its three seasons on ABC for some odd reason. When it re-appeared in syndication, I was older and I guess they realized it was more harmless than they remembered. I think the violence was what concerned them.
His Caine character went on to influence D&D in two places. The obvious one was the monk class but I’m confident a lot more of the details came from the numerous kung fu movies Gygax had seen. However, Caine was frequently used as an example in a Dragon article on how to revise the class into something more feasible, until third edition. The latter sign was more blatant in the Bloodstone Pass series of adventures: one of the heroes was a powerful monk named Kane. I think he even turned the tide of a battle in the story by killing a major villain.
Back to David…I’m glad he at least finished out as well liked and remembered for the Kill Bill role. He managed to be a star in his own right despite having the famous John Carradine as his father.