Critically acclaimed actor John Malkovich isn’t known for playing heroes but the two-time Academy Award nominee played a real-life one earlier this week in Toronto after he came to the rescue of a badly injured man.
The stage and screen actor, who is in the city for the theatrical production of The Giacomo Variations at the Elgin Theatre, helped saved an Ohio man’s life Thursday night.
The man, in his 70s, had tripped on a curb near the King Edward Hotel in downtown Toronto, where he was staying.
"(The man) ended up landing on his neck," Chris Mathias, a doorman at the hotel, told CTV Toronto.
According to Mathias, Malkovich was standing nearby at the time of the fall, smoking a cigarette, before he swooped in to help the injured man.
The man's neck was badly cut from some scaffolding he hit during the fall, and he was lying on his back in a pool of blood, Mathias said.
"Mr. Malkovich was here," Mathias said. “(He) placed his hand and started applying pressure immediately to the man’s neck and didn’t let go until the ambulance arrived."
Mathias said Malkovich also comforted the man, who was worried about being sent to county hospital.
The doorman said the actor told the man: "Listen, they got a really good (health care) system up here."
The injured man returned home to Ohio Saturday.
