As the coroner’s service searches for answers around the cause of death for Glee actor Cory Monteith, one of his close friends cautions against jumping to conclusions.
“It’s easy to … think that he just went on a bender and OD’d, but it doesn’t seem to add up,” actor Joe MacLeod said. “But I don’t know — that’s all speculation, and at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter. It’s all the same result.”
The Victoria-raised actor best known for his role as quarterback Finn Hudson in Fox’s hit TV show Glee was found dead at age 31 in his hotel room at Vancouver’s Fairmont Pacific Rim hotel Saturday afternoon. It could take several days before toxicology test results are available following an autopsy, a spokeswoman for the B.C. Coroners Service said Monday.
“We do understand there’s a lot of public interest in this case,” coroner Barb McLintock said. “We will try and get it done in as good a time as we can without compromising the integrity of the investigation or the testing.”
MacLeod said Monteith had been sober for eight or nine years when they met on the set of Kaya, an MTV show filmed in Vancouver, and he was amazed by Monteith’s resilience. Even when Monteith was cast in Glee and moved to Los Angeles, MacLeod said Monteith resisted the urge to drink. “He would have parties at the mansion he was living at, and there’d be booze around all over the place, and he would be having the fake beers,” he said. “I always thought that was so great.”
While the actor’s family, friends and worldwide fanbase of Gleeks mourn the loss of the actor, his charity work and support for at-risk youths is coming into sharper focus at home.
Monteith, who struggled with substance abuse in his youth and had a personal brush with homelessness, has been a vocal supporter of the Creating Homefulness Society. Ann McGregor, his mother, is a volunteer with the society, which is attempting to turn its Woodwynn Farm property on West Saanich Road into a therapeutic farm that would house 90 homeless people.
Woodwynn executive director Richard Leblanc said the actor was very encouraging about the farm project. “They came forward prior to us purchasing Woodwynn,” he said. “Cory was really starting to get his act together, and he made a comment that he wished a place like this had been around when he needed it. So his mom contacted me.”
It was two years ago — a time when Monteith expressed a strong desire to reconnect with his hometown.
His last public homecoming was in May 2011. The actor and drummer, who once played in the Victoria band Porch Life, returned with his Los Angeles band Bonnie Dune to appear at Sugar nightclub, taking time out to be a guest deejay on the Zone radio station.
His most recent known hometown visit was in late April, following a brief stint in rehab. The late actor was spotted relaxing at Fisherman’s Wharf with his girlfriend, Glee co-star Lea Michele, 26, who tweeted sunset shots.
His representatives said donations would be accepted in his memory on the website for Project Limelight, a performing-arts program that provides creative opportunities for children and teenagers in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.
No funeral arrangements for Monteith have been announced.
With a file from The Canadian Press
