• iconNews
  • videos
  • entertainment
  • Home
  • News
    • UK News
    • US News
    • Australia
    • Ireland
    • World News
    • Weird News
    • Viral News
    • Sport
    • Technology
    • Science
    • True Crime
    • Travel
  • Entertainment
    • Celebrity
    • TV & Film
    • Netflix
    • Music
    • Gaming
    • TikTok
  • LAD Originals
    • Say Maaate to a Mate
    • Daily Ladness
    • Lad Files
    • UOKM8?
    • FreeToBe
    • Extinct
    • Citizen Reef
  • Advertise
  • Terms
  • Privacy & Cookies
  • LADbible Group
  • UNILAD
  • SPORTbible
  • GAMINGbible
  • Tyla
  • UNILAD Tech
  • FOODbible
  • License Our Content
  • About Us & Contact
  • Jobs
  • Latest
  • Topics A-Z
  • Authors
Facebook
Instagram
X
Threads
Snapchat
TikTok
YouTube

LAD Entertainment

YouTube

LAD Stories

Submit Your Content
Tragic story behind guy who played Sloth in The Goonies

Home> Entertainment> Film

Updated 11:12 31 Aug 2023 GMT+1Published 11:03 31 Aug 2023 GMT+1

Tragic story behind guy who played Sloth in The Goonies

The actor appeared in numerous movies but was best known for his role as Sloth

Claire Reid

Claire Reid

The Goonies is an absolute 80s classic, centring on a group of lovable misfits, who stumble upon some hidden pirate treasure but find themselves the target of a family of criminals headed up by Mama Fratelli.

However, what few fans of The Goonies know is that, in real life, the actor who played Mama Fartelli’s severely disfigured son Sloth, John Matuszak, had a truly tragic backstory.

Prior to his untimely death at the age of just 38 in 1989, he suffered misfortune after misfortune, despite a seemingly glittering career as a football player.

Before this even began, he lost his two brothers to cystic fibrosis, with one dying two months after birth and another dying at the age of two, when The Goonies star was around 12 or 13-years-old.

Advert

Just like his on-screen character, Matuszak - who required five hours of prosthetics and makeup to transform into Sloth - was an imposing man with a height of 6ft 8.

He played for the Houston Oilers and Washington Redskins, as well as the Oakland Raiders, with whom he won two Super Bowls during his 1976 to 1982 tenure.

But while sport brought him a lot of success on the surface, it also brought him chronic pain, beginning with an injury that he suffered while playing in college.

Sloth was played by John Matuszak.
Maximum Film

This initial injury - a shoulder separation - at the University of Missouri was followed by multiple back injuries that eventually led to surgery in the early eighties.

Advert

By this point, the footballer was in so much pain that he was put on the reserve list before his ultimate retirement in 1983.

Like a lot of people with chronic pain, Matuszak resorted to self medicating with drugs and prescription medications, which resulted in addictions.

He found fame as an actor largely after his footballing career ended, with most of his film and TV credits taking place after 1982.

Some of his other memorable roles were in North Dallas Forty, Caveman, The Ice Pirates, One Crazy Summer, Ghost Writer and Down the Drain, which was his final performance and posthumously released in 1990.

During an autobiography published in the eighties, Cruisin' With The Tooz, he admitted that he did get clean at one point.

Advert

John Matuszak died when he was just 38.
George Rose/Getty Images

"I abstain from cocaine, and any other foreign substance, entirely now," he wrote. "I take nothing, not even sleeping pills. I've hit damn near bottom. I don't ever want to go back."

But sadly the actor's sobriety was not to last, and he ultimately passed away from an accidental overdose just four years after starring in The Goonies in 1985.

Marv and Audrey Matuszak, the footballer-turned-actor's parents, said they believed his chronic pain was ultimately a major contributing factor in his death.

They said: "We are not unmindful of the problems our son had in his battle against chronic pain and his resulting use of drugs, both prescription and otherwise."

Advert

However, his ex-girlfriend, Stephanie Cozart, said that he was also motivated to take drugs to help him cope with the grief of losing his brothers.

She told the LA Times in 1989: "The man was in a lot of emotional pain. He had a lot of childhood stuff to deal with.

"He had a lot of present-day stuff. He was a therapist's dream."

Featured Image Credit: Warner Bros. / George Rose/Getty Images

Topics: TV and Film, Drugs, Health, Mental Health, Celebrity

Claire Reid
Claire Reid

Claire is a journalist at LADbible who, after dossing around for a few years, went to Liverpool John Moores University. She graduated with a degree in Journalism and a whole load of debt. When not writing words in exchange for money she is usually at home watching serial killer documentaries surrounded by cats. You can contact Claire at [email protected]

Advert

Advert

Advert

Choose your content:

9 hours ago
  • 9 hours ago

    Woman who partied with Noel in the 90s reveals what the Oasis brother is really like

    She says things changed around 1997

    Entertainment
  • 9 hours ago

    Lad with Oasis ticket reveals hilarious way he's going to wind up 'proper fans' at the gig

    This will really drive long-time fans wild

    Entertainment
  • 9 hours ago

    Black Sabbath fans shocked as Game of Thrones legend Jason Momoa joins moshing crowd at final gig

    He was specially recruited to be the compère at Villa Park, Birmingham, this weekend

    Entertainment
  • 9 hours ago

    Fans divided over 'terrible' Oasis show as first gig revellers complain 'they just play song after song'

    Probably tweets you wouldn't want to tag Liam in...

    Entertainment
  • Documentary looks into tragic story behind man who played Sloth in The Goonies
  • Tragic story of 'world's strongest boy' Little Hercules who lives a very different lifestyle now
  • Director of tragic new Matthew Perry documentary reveals why none of the Friends cast took part
  • Tragic story of child star from Sons of Anarchy who went on to commit grim murder