Cause of death revealed for Peter Greene, the 'Pulp Fiction' actor best known as villain Zed

The origin of decease for Peter Greene, a quality histrion known for playing villains successful movies including “Pulp Fiction” and “The Mask,” has been revealed by New York City’s Office of Chief Medical Examiner.

Police recovered Greene, 60, dormant successful his flat Dec. 12. They didn’t fishy foul play.

His decease was ruled an accident, the M.E.’s bureau said via email. Greene died from a “gunshot coiled of near axilla with wounded of brachial artery,” the bureau said. In mundane English, that means helium changeable himself successful his near underarm and injured a important artery that starts successful the enarthrosis and runs down to the elbow crease.

Police recovered the quality histrion successful his Lower East Side apartment, Deadline reported, aft neighbors heard Christmas euphony playing for days and 1 of them called authorities and the landlord for a wellness check.

Greene had a past of addiction, per the New York Post, and attempted termination successful the 1990s. He was scheduled to spell successful for a process to region a benign tumor adjacent his lung connected the time helium was found, the outlet said. His manager had talked to him 2 days earlier helium was found.

“He sounded OK … It was conscionable a wholly mean conversation. He was a small tense astir the cognition going in, but helium said it wasn’t ace serious,” manager Gregg Edwards told the Post successful December. “He was talking astir that and hoping that I was going to beryllium OK and wishing maine good arsenic I was wishing him well. We’re bully friends. I emotion the guy.”

Greene’s best-known relation was the villain Zed, who was brought successful to torture Bruce Willis and Ving Rhames’ characters successful Quentin Tarantino’s 1994 classical “Pulp Fiction.” In “The Mask,” besides released successful 1994, helium played mobster Dorian Tyrell, antagonist to Jim Carrey’s Stanley Ipkiss, a.k.a. the Mask.

Those roles came lone a mates of years into Greene’s career, which per IMDb included astir 100 TV and movie credits from 1990 to 2026. His TV credits included episodes of “Chicago P.D.,” “Hawaii Five-0,” “Law & Order,” “Justified” and more.

He started retired with parts successful a mates of TV shows successful the aboriginal 1990s earlier landing the pb relation successful “Laws of Gravity.” In 1995, Times movie professional Kenneth Turan called the 1992 movie “independent American filmmaking astatine its best” and described Jimmy (Greene) arsenic “a small-time thoroughfare outlaw who, though horrified astatine the thought of existent work, is unchangeable by section standards” successful Brooklyn’s past crime-ridden Greenpoint neighborhood.

The New Jersey native, calved Oct. 8, 1965, studied Method acting astatine the Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute successful New York City erstwhile helium was successful his 20s. He told Premiere mag successful 1996 that helium ran distant from location astatine property 15 and lived connected the streets, utilizing and dealing drugs and hiding from different dealers successful theaters, wherever helium got into acting. His cause usage overlapped with his aboriginal occurrence connected screen.

After a 1996 termination attempt, the histrion said, helium got attraction for addiction and sobered up.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.