Boyfriend of Clint Eastwood's daughter dies on skiing holiday

Michael Combs, a musician who shared a home in California with Alison Eastwood, an actress and model, had complained of a headache before he disappeared while snowboarding at the Vail Ski Resort in the Colorado mountains.

A rescue team found him among trees at the bottom of Vail Mountain after a 14-hour search, but they were unable to revive him. The cause of death will not be released until after a post-mortem examination by the Eagle County coroner.

"Our family is shocked and saddened by this tragic accident. Our thoughts are with Alison and Mike’s family at this very difficult time," said Clint Eastwood in a statement issued by his Los Angeles office. He was not at the resort at the time.

Combs, 42, and Ms Eastwood had arrived at the ski resort, a favourite with the rich and famous, last Thursday for a long weekend on the slopes.

Alison Eastwood, 32, a former Playboy model who starred with her father in the film Absolute Power and in a number of other films before launching a clothing range, last saw her boyfriend on Monday afternoon when they were snowboarding together.

She told police that he had complained of feeling unwell at about lunchtime. The police report states: "She said they got off the lift and he clipped into his snowboard and told her he would meet her at the bottom of the mountain."

A search was launched after he did not turn up and Ms Eastwood reported him missing.

Jen Brown, the resort’s communications manager, said: "They utilised snowmobiles, Sno-Cats and were on foot in their search efforts." Police, meanwhile, were following up the missing persons report filed by Ms Eastwood.

"An officer contacted all the local hospitals, the airport to make sure he hadn’t flown out, different bars and restaurants," said Kim Andree, spokeswoman for the Eagle County Sheriff’s Department.

The search of the resort’s 5,289 acres was called off overnight and resumed on Tuesday morning. Mr Brown reported that Combs’s body was found at lunchtime a short distance off the Riva Catwalk beginners’ trail, near the Golden Peak base.

"He didn’t have a helmet on but there wasn’t any indication he had head trauma," Ms Andree said.

Mr Combs, known in the music world as "Mad Dog", was a former guitarist and vocalist for California bands the Cadillac Tramps and the Back Alley Gators.

Authorities say it is the first skiing death reported in Colorado’s skiing resorts this season. Last year, seven skiers and snowboarders died from accidents on the slopes, and six succumbed to medical problems.

United States Congressman Sonny Bono, the 1960s pop star and former husband of singer Cher, was killed in January 1998 when he skied into a tree at Lake Tahoe, California. Five days earlier, Michael Kennedy, nephew of the assassinated US president John F Kennedy, died after hitting a tree during a game of ski football with his family in Colorado’s Aspen mountains.

Bob McGowan, Ms Eastwood’s manager, said she and Combs had lived together in Calabasas, California, and that she was deeply upset by the tragedy. Despite Ms Eastwood’s success as an actress and model, she and her boyfriend maintained a low profile away from the Hollywood celebrity lifestyle.

Born in 1972, Ms Eastwood began her acting career with small parts in her father’s films Bronco Billy and Tightrope aged eight and 12 respectively. Clint Eastwood divorced her mother, the swimsuit model Maggie Johnson, in 1980 and Alison had several run-ins with authority during her rebellious teenage years, including one night in jail on a drunk-driving charge.

She launched a successful career as a model and returned to acting in 1997 in Absolute Power before receiving acclaim for her role as a cheated wife in the 1999 comedy Just a Little Harmless Sex. In 2002 she posed naked for Playboy.

Clint Eastwood, 74, has always been very protective of his seven children, fathered by five different women.