J. Vespa/WireImageJay Leggett, comic actor and screenwriter who starred on one season of Fox's In Living Color, died on Saturday, Nov. 23 after collapsing during a deer hunt. He was 50.
According to Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Legget was deer hunting near his hometown of Tomahawk, Wis. when emergency crews were called to a cabin just after 4 p.m. and arrived to find family members performing CPR on the comedian.
The late actor's death is believed to be heart related, although the Lincoln County coroner said on Monday that a final cause of death is still pending.
A longtime hunter, Leggett produced and co-directed the 2011 documentary To the Hunt, which documented deer camp life and the "fun, family and fraternity of the hunt."
A onetime regular on the Chicago improv scene in the late '80s and early '90s, Leggett went on to appear on such shows as In Living Color, Ally McBeal, Star Trek: Voyager, ER, Between Brothers, Spike TV's Factory, NYPD Blue and The Drew Carey Show.
He also co-produced the 2004 flick Employee of the Month, which starred Matt Damon and Christina Applegate, and he wrote the screenplay for the Steven Brill-directed comedy Without a Paddle.
While Legget was living in Los Angeles at the time of his death, teaching improv, acting and writing at Comedy Now L.A., it seems that the actor always kept a piece of his heart in his hometown.
"He was doing what he loved," Mary Schlag, the manager of the Tomahawk Cinema told the Wausau Daily Herald after Leggett's tragic death. "If there's any comfort in passing, that's it. He was doing something that he loved."