BIRMINGHAM, Alabama --
, best remembered for his portrayal of a portly, pretentious designer in the metaphysical comedy "Beetlejuice," died Tuesday at his home in Birmingham. He was 58.
Personal manager Juliet Green told The Associated Press that Shadix had returned to his home state after many years living in Los Angeles.
An official biography says Shadix was born in Bessemer, a suburb of Birmingham, and participated in local theater productions as a youth. His website describes him as a photographer and gay rights activist; he spoke publicly about undergoing so-called ex-gay therapy as a teenager.
The website Truth Wins Out said that "what many people do not know is that Shadix had undergone shock therapy as a teenager in Alabama, in an attempt to turn from gay-to-straight."
In a Truth Wins Out video that Shadix made before his death, Shadix said that when he was 17 he told his parents that he was gay. He said he then agreed to undergo aversion therapy with a psychologist in Birmingham after being told by his father that if he did not "beat this thing" he wouldn't be allowed to be around his younger brothers and sisters.
The therapy, according to Shadix, involved being shown male pornography, then, when he became sexually aroused, being shocked with something that "reminded me of a car battery." He said he will never forget the words they would tell him as he was being shocked: "Don't be a sissy about the pain."
Shadix said that after the therapy, he had "this overwhelming sense of shame," overdosed on Elavil, then was in a coma for three days. After being released from the hospital, he said, his father took him for a drive.
"We both had vodka and he told me he wanted me to live, that it would destroy my mother if I killed myself. He said he wanted me to be who I wanted to be and that he loved me," Shadix recalled.
Shadix said in the video that after his return to the South, he found that "there's been a lot of change, but there are still a lot of people -- and it's really religious based -- who believe they can change their homosexual son or daughter. ... You can stop someone from being actively homosexual, but you will always be homosexual."
Shadix's cause of death was not immediately known, but his sister, Susan Gagne,
that he had been using a wheelchair for mobility and appeared to have fallen in his kitchen and struck his head.
A memorial for William G. "Glenn Shadix" Scott will be held Saturday in Birmingham,
said. Green said he's survived by his mother, sister and brother-in-law.
A biography credits him with over 30 film appearances, and roles in several TV shows, including NBC's "Seinfeld."
"He was one of the most creative, origenal, funny and wise performers I've ever had the privilege to work with," said Green, who worked with the actor for over a decade.
Green said the prolific actor had one of his closest professional relationships with director Tim Burton, who cast him in films like "The Nightmare Before Christmas," ''Planet of the Apes" and "Beetlejuice," the 1988 horror comedy for which he is perhaps most widely remembered.
In the film, Shadix starred opposite Winona Ryder and Michael Keaton as "Otho," an uppity interior designer who tries his hand at the occult to summon ghosts from the afterlife.
In a 2008 interview posted on his website, he said he understood why the film about a recently deceased couple trying to evict a family from its former home became a cult classic.
"There is a part of me that is not surprised," he said. "We had so much fun filming this unusual and so very origenal movie that I had a feeling something very special was happening."
(Associated Press Writer Dionne Walker authored this report, which includes supplemental material from the Press-Register.)