David Carradine appeared in more than 200 films and television dramas. It was, however, for roles in the Kung Fu television series at the start of his career and two blockbusting Kill Bill movies towards the end of his life, that he is most readily recognised.

In the Kung Fu series, which ran for 45 episodes between 1972 and 1975, Carradine played Kwai Chang Caine, a runaway Shaolin priest wandering the Wild West in the early years of the 19th century. Though non-violent by inclination, Carradine’s character frequently deployed his martial arts skills to devastating effect. Kwai Chang Caine was known to his onscreen mentor, Master Po, as “Grasshopper” , and as well as receiving some plaudits for his acting, and sparking much interest in the martial arts, Carradine saw the enigmatically spoken “ahhh Grasshopper” catchphrase become part of popular culture of the 1970s and 1980s.

A feature-length TV film established the Kung Fu format. It was the brainchild of Ed Spielman, was developed by Herman Miller who was also a writer and co-producer, and directed and produced by Jerry Thorpe.

Some 30 years later, Carradine appeared alongside Uma Thurman in Kill Bill Vol I and Kill Bill Vol II. The two films, which were released in 2003 and 2004 were directed by Quentin Tarantino, whose Reservoir Dogs shocked audiences with its vivid portrayals of merciless violence in 1992. The Kill Bill films were also bloodthirsty although Tarantino suggested that the movies were given a purposely self-mocking tone.

In Kill Bill Uma Thurman, who had also starred in Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction (1994), plays a powerful woman who it transpires had fallen pregnant by Bill, the role taken by Carradine. Cut and recut with flashbacks and flash forwards to heighten the drama, the characters exact viciously physical revenge on each other and those that surround them. Some cinemagoers were appalled at the nonchalantly graphic representation of death and maiming. The reviewer in The Hollywood Reporter, however, called it “hugely watchable” with fights of “jaw-droppingly kinetic” energy.

The Kill Bill films allowed Tarantino deploy a cinematic style that mixed homage to Japanese Samurai films, spaghetti westerns and martial art genres of the sort popularised by Bruce Lee. They attained cult status not unlike that won by Kung Fu. But rather than recalling him from the television series dramas, Tarantino is said to have hired Carradine, then aged 66, after reading his idiosyncratic autobiography, Endless Highway.

David Arthur Carradine was born in Hollywood in 1936. His father was John Carradine, the actor, who found success in Westerns and horror films. Keith and Robert Carradine, in something of a Hollywood dynasty, were half-brothers of David’s.

By his own account, David Carradine was playing truant from school at the age of 13, was sent to a reform establishment for a while, and spent time in foster homes in the US state of Massachusetts. He first came to public attention in 1963, appearing in the Armstrong Circle Theatre, on television. He played a “Utah kid” in a 1964 episode of The Virginian and in 1966 was in 16 episodes of the Shane series of Westerns, based on the 1949 book of the same name by Jack Schaefer.

His film career included work with Martin Scorsese in Boxcar Bertha (1972), in which he starred with Barbara Hershey, by whom he had a son, although they never married. Kung Fu earned seven Emmy nominations, including one for Carradine as Best Actor. He was named best actor in the National Board of Film Review awards and won a Golden Globe for Bound For Glory (1976), directed by Hal Ashby, in which he played Woody Guthrie, the folk singer.

Although acclaimed by critics, Bound for Glory was less than successful among cinemagoers. But Carradine throughout his career mixed challenging work with more obviously popular fare. After Death Race 2000 in 1975, and Canonball! in 1976 he starred in Ingmar Bergman’s only Hollywood production, The Serpent’s Egg, in 1977, and played Cole Younger in The Long Riders in 1980. Also in 1980 he appeared as the painter Paul Gauguin in a television adaptation of his life story called Gauguin the Savage.

He had roles in a succession of films for the big and the small screen through the 1980s and 1990s, winning a second Golden Globe for his work on the 1985 film North and South. To less praise, he appeared in Bird on a Wire, a romantic melodrama starring Mel Gibson and Goldie Hawn, in 1990 and Kung Fu, the Legend Continues, in 1992. At the time of his death he was working on a film called Stretch. He was seen most recently on the big screen playing a cameo of a shady villain in Crank: High Voltage. The British actor, Jason Statham, starred.

Carradine prided himself on remaining an outsider. Considering his path to fame he said: “How I got the Kung Fu part amazes me to this day. I arrived for the audition barefooted with my head shaved and accompanied by my dog.” He also admitted: “To be sure I’ve never made any secret about my growing my own pot and smoking it. I’ve been in court on marijuana charges too, though I was not convicted. I’ll admit to other unsavoury things about myself too. I have a record of thieving, I was a ring-leader of a teenage crime gang. I was expelled from school. I was court martialled three times in the army. . . and even if that’s all behind me now, I still don’t please a lot of people by the way I live with my girlfriend and have a kid without bothering to get married.”

At the same time, he also professed to have found sympathy for the mysticism and pacifism espoused in the Buddist culture that formed a backdrop to Kung Fu. “Up to the point I reached 17 I had at least one fight a day. Violence was a part of me. Today I feel I am a totally non-violent man — I am not sure I’d resist even if someone tried to kill me.” Referring to Kung Fu, he added: “Success in the role has brought me fame and money but it hasn’t really affected my personal life at all. Money ceases to be important to me after I’ve got the basic possessions I need. These are a home, a car and a guitar.”

At the height of his Kung Fu success, however, Carradine was accused by police of damaging a house in Hollywood during a “crazed rampage”. In 1975 he was ordered to pay $20,000 damages to a woman he had assaulted while, in the words of the court papers, “cavorting in the nude” in the hills above Hollywood.

He was married five times. He is survived by his fifth wife and two daughters and a son from previous marriages. With his fifth wife, Annie Bierman, Carradine was a supporter of Food 4 Africa, a charitable organisation set up to give children at least one vitamin and mineral enriched meal every day.

As well as acting, Carradine recorded 60 tracks of music and, later in life, tried to establish a reputation for himself as an artist.

David Carradine, actor, was born on December 8, 1936. He was found dead on June 4, 2009, aged 72