The Joe Spinell Story2001

[on Joe's death]

William Lustig:
There's a funny story that I'm sure Joe is laughing about in Heaven. One of the things that Joe kept was the fake severed head from the ending of 'Maniac'. He kept it in his living room on top of his television set. Joe was a hemophiliac. When Joe died, he died from somehow bleeding to death. Nobody knows all the details but from what I heard, he was alone in his apartment on that morning, he was drunk, high or whatever, he somehow cut himself and instead of biding his wound, he wondered around the apartment, fell asleep on his couch, and bled to death. So there was this massive amount of blood all over the living room. When the police showed up later that day, they find all this blood all over the living room floor and they see this fake severed head on top of the large TV set. They thought it was a real head so they freaked out! Looking down from Heaven, I'm sure that Joe found it funny because that was his kind of humor.