It was an ordinary Sunday in Beverly Hills. Patrick Muldoon had coffee with his partner Miriam Rothbart the kind of quiet morning ritual that doesn’t register as anything significant until suddenly it becomes the last one. He got up headed to the shower. Miriam made a phone call. Maybe ten minutes passed she wasn’t sure just a sense that something felt slightly off.
She pushed open the bathroom door and found him on the floor not breathing. By the time paramedics arrived and his family came running from across the city Patrick Muldoon was gone. He was 57. His sister Shana Muldoon Zappa confirmed that the cause of death was a heart attack. There were no known health conditions.
No warning signs that anyone can point to with any certainty. For a family that describes him as someone who ran regularly practiced martial arts and went to the gym with real commitment it felt and still feels like a “unbelievable nightmare” in Shana’s own words. That phrase keeps coming back.
Because how else do you describe it? Patrick Muldoon Cause Of Death struck people in Hollywood as particularly cruel precisely because of how unlikely it seemed. This wasn’t a man who appeared to be fading. Two days before he died he was posting on Instagram about a new film project Kock roach starring Chris Hems worth Taron Egerton and Zazie Beetz describing it with the kind of genuine excitement that doesn’t perform well it just lands.
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Full Name | William Patrick Muldoon III |
| Date of Birth | 1968 (exact date not publicly confirmed) |
| Date of Death | April 19, 2026 |
| Age at Death | 57 |
| Place of Death | Beverly Hills, California, USA |
| Cause of Death | Heart attack |
| Birthplace | San Pedro, Los Angeles, California, USA |
| Education | Loyola High School; University of Southern California (played football) |
| Occupation | Actor, Producer, Musician |
| Known For | Days of Our Lives (Austin Reed), Melrose Place (Richard Hart), Starship Troopers (1997) |
| Notable TV Roles | Days of Our Lives (1992–95, 2011–12), Melrose Place (1995–96), Saved by the Bell (1991) |
| Production Company | Storyboard Productions |
| Partner | Miriam Rothbart |
| Survived By | Partner Miriam Rothbart; parents Deanna and Patrick Muldoon Sr.; sister Shana Muldoon Zappa; niece Halo and nephew Arrow Zappa |
| Reference | New York Times Obituary |
He was planning to fly to Australia the following week. St. Barts the week after that. A man with a calendar full of places to be. Most people who grew up watching daytime television in the early nineties knew Muldoon as Austin Reed the handsome good hearted boxer at the center of a love triangle on Days of Our Lives.
He joined the show in 1992 and stayed through 1995 eventually appearing in nearly five hundred episodes across two stints the second coming in 2011 and 2012. The role earned him a Soap Opera Digest Award for outstanding male newcomer in 1994 and it’s the one that most people still reach for first when they try to place his face. He was by most accounts genuinely good at playing a man everyone wanted to root for.
After Salem he moved to prime time to Melrose Place where Aaron Spelling gave him the very different role of Richard Hart a villainous fashion designer. It wasn’t a stretch in the other direction so much as a demonstration that he had more range than daytime television had fully required of him.
Then came Starship Troopers in 1997 Paul Verhoeven’s campy violent strangely enjoyable science fiction film where Muldoon played Zander Barcalow opposite Denise Richards and Casper Van Dien. It became a cult film. His role in it became part of a certain kind of nineties cultural memory. Richards herself who dated Muldoon for nearly five years during that decade and had remained close to him ever since was described by sources as “inconsolable” after learning of his death. On April 21st she wrote on Instagram that losing him was “so hard to put into words” that he was her best friend her family.
Their relationship had apparently been “tumultuous” and “passionate” in the way that some relationships from that era were but what survived the romance was a friendship that clearly mattered to both of them. They had just finished filming Dirty Hands together a crime thriller set for release this month. There’s been some quieter conversation around what role if any his years of hard living in Hollywood might have played in his death.
Friends and insiders have noted somewhat carefully that Muldoon was part of a fast social circle during his Days of Our Lives years that addiction problems were as one source described it “an open secret” on set. His sister has pushed back on the more dramatic versions of this narrative saying he never went to rehab and never crossed into what she’d call severe addiction.
“He always got back to center on his own” she said. It’s possible both things are true that he lived fast and that he managed eventually to pull himself back from it. The heart doesn’t always keep a tally that shows up on a chart. What’s harder to square is just how present and energized he seemed in the final stretch of his life. Beyond acting he had built a legitimate producing career through his company Storyboard Productions with credits including The Card Counter Marlowe and Riff Raff.
He was a musician lead singer of The Sleeping Masses the kind of guy who’d pull out a guitar at a party and mean it. Those who knew him described someone who “made others feel safe and seen” who gave what were apparently memorable hugs who moved through the world with something described as a “full tilt rock ‘n’ roll spirit.” That’s not PR language. It’s the way people talk when they’re genuinely trying to capture someone who’s gone.
The last video his sister shared publicly was filmed the day before he died at a preview opening of the new Los Angeles County Museum of Art. He had filmed a painting of St. Ignatius of Loyola he went to Loyola High School played football there and broken into a chant a callback to some deep part of who he was before Hollywood got hold of him.
A man alone in a museum chanting at a painting that meant something specific and personal to him. Patrick Muldoon Cause Of Death will likely be recorded simply as cardiac arrest a heart attack sudden and without apparent forewarning.
But the fuller picture is of someone who seemed by every visible measure to be moving forward. A new film. New projects. Two trips abroad on the calendar. The coffee was made the morning was ordinary and then it wasn’t. His family is still processing it. His father fractured his shoulder running into the house when they got the news. That detail small and awful says more about the chaos of that Sunday than anything else.
i) https://www.rd.co.uk/showbiz/patrick-muldoon-final-moments-family-death-b1279355.html
ii) https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/20/arts/television/patrick-muldoon-dead.html
iii) https://www.deadline.com/2026/04/patrick-muldoon-dead-days-of-our-lives-melrose-place-1236865474/
iv) https://www.wonderwall.com/celebrity/patrick-muldoon-fear-partying-days-sparked-health-issues-before-sudden-death/