'Glee' actor Mark Salling dies at 35     

LOS ANGELES - AP

Mark Salling, who played bad-boy Noah "Puck" Puckerman in the hit musical-comedy "Glee," died on Jan. 30, several weeks after pleading guilty to possessing child pornography. He was 35.

Salling pleaded guilty in December after authorities said a search of his computer found more than 50,000 images of child porn. He was scheduled to be sentenced March 7, and prosecutors planned to ask a judge to send him to prison for four to seven years.

A law enforcement official not authorized to speak publicly says Salling was found hanging in a riverbed area in the Tujunga neighborhood of Los Angeles. The official says the actor's death is being investigated as a suicide.

"I can confirm that Mark Salling passed away early this morning," the actor's attorney, Michael J. Proctor, said.

The darkly handsome actor had appeared in only a handful of projects before his breakout role in "Glee," the popular Fox TV series about students in a high school glee club and their circle of family and friends. It aired from 2009-15.

Earlier credits included 1996's "Children of the Corn IV: The Gathering," a 1999 guest role on the Chuck Norris series "Walker, Texas Ranger" and a part in the 2014 TV movie "Rocky Road."

A singer-songwriter as well as actor, he released two albums: "Smoke Signals" in 2008 and "Pipe Dreams" in 2010.

Following "Pipe Dreams'," release, Salling told The Associated Press he had been a singer-songwriter long before he became an actor.

Salling's character on "Glee" was a member of the school's football team who ends up joining the glee club. One of his character's friends was another jock-turned-singer, Finn Hudson, who was played by Cory Monteith.

Monteith died in 2013 from a toxic mix of alcohol and heroin, according to a coroner's finding.