Is it true that he was a douchebag in real life?
Not true, brother Pamith. He was a good man. I actually met him in a diner early 2009 when he was sick. He was ordering breakfast alone but I approached him and told him how much I loved his movies, and how I once accidentally split my wife's head open trying to recreate the move from Dirty Dancing.
He was the sweetest man. He asked me to sit down and join him for breakfast and he ordered me the same thing he was having: pancakes loaded with maple syrup. Anyway, we talked for about twenty minutes as we ate, and he gave me so much life advice.
The next part I'm really ashamed about, and to this day I've no idea why I did it, but as he went to the toilets to go take a piss, I leaned over and spat a greener right in his coffee then stirred it around. As he came back he finished it in one, big gulp, gave me his contact number, and shook my hand as he left. RIP to the legend.