Only Murders in the Building season 3 has Paul Rudd ‘dying’ on Broadway, but what happens when an actor actually dies on stage in real life?
Only Murders in the Building season 3 sees Paul Rudd join the team as Ben Glenroy, who ‘dies’ under mysterious circumstances during Oliver’s new Broadway play. What happens when an actor dies onstage? Here are 12 times artists actually died during their ‘final performances’.
Twelve times, actors died doing what they love
Before we get into the list, let’s start at the very beginning. The first actor known to have died on stage during a performance – Moliere.
Moliere is a French actor, playwright, and author who had a violent coughing attack. The incident occurred during a 1673 performance of The Imaginary Invalid.
It is believed that they survived the performance but passed away shortly after returning home. This death led to the superstition about wearing green to bring bad luck on actors.
Brandon Lee: Struck during the 1993 filming
Brandon Lee is the son of Bruce Lee. Tragically, Lee was shot to death during 1993’s filming The Crow. The barrel of a prop gun was blown out by a blank round.
Popularity is the key to success. urban legend that claims the director kept the scene of Lee’s death in the final cut of the movie. The scene in fact was refilmed using a different actor. Also, they changed his manner of death from a stabbing to one involving a throwing blade.
Redd Foxx suffers heart attack in 1991
John Elroy Sanford (also known as Redd Foxx) died of a heartattack in 1991 while filming an episode of The Royal Family. Foxx is said to have fallen after filming the scene. He was known for his famous pratfalls in which he faked a heart attack on a TV show. None of the crew or cast suspected anything.
The death of a reporter on location , “It was an end so ironic that for a brief moment castmates figured Foxx–whose 1970s TV character often faked coronaries–was kidding when he grabbed a chair and fell to the floor.”
Owen Hart: Fell during a 1999 PPV
Owen Hart is a Canadian pro wrestler. He was with the WWF. In 1999, he died at a PPV called Over The Edge. Tragically, Hart lost his own life when he fell almost 80 feet to the top rope in the ring. Hart planned to do the stunt as a way to get into the ring but tragically, things did not go according to plan.
A live audience of 430,000 people was not shown the video of the accident. The 16,000 spectators in the venue were traumatized. This injury caused internal bleeding because of a ruptured Aorta. Hart passed away shortly after arriving in Kansas at Truman Medical Center.
Edith Webster had a heartattack during a 1986 show
Edith Webster, actress Performing Arts The Drunkard was a stage show that became wildly popular in 1986. She had just finished singing the song ‘Please Don’t Talk About Me When I’m Gone’, after which her character was meant to fall dead to the floor.
Tragically, Webster performed the song and fell to the floor as planned; however, after a few minutes, her cast members realized that something was wrong – Webster had died of a heart attack.
Tommy Cooper, heart attack while performing in 1984
Tommy Cooper is a British icon. The star passed away from a heart attack during a performance on Live From Her Majesty’s variety show in 1984. Only moments later, the live broadcast was cut off. Cooper died after being taken to the local hospital.
Ironically, Cooper was known for ‘messing up’ various magic tricks and comedy sketches as part of his brand, to the point that after he collapsed, even his assistant thought that this was improvisation.
Renato di Paolo: Hung during a 2000 show
Renato di Paolo tragically died during a production of Passion of Christ, in Rome, in 2000. It was the night before Easter. As Judas Iscariot, he had to pretend to hang himself with a rope. Tragically, it failed. Di Paolo remained alone for about 30 minutes before the cast realized what had happened.
The second incident of this kind in the history of theatre. Anthony Wheeler, an English actor who was performing the same scene at that time, also died by strangulation. The scene was from a 1997 Jesus Christ Superstar production.
Dick Shawn suffered a heart attack in 1987 during a performance
Dick Shawn, an American comedian and actor was performing live at the University of California when he collapsed suddenly on stage. Audience members thought it was part of a show. The stage manager did not check his pulse for several minutes, and no alarms were raised.
The following is a breakdown of the. Reporting from the LA Times, audience members were so sure that this was an act that they openly commented ‘Take his wallet’ and ‘How long is this going to go on?’. The stagehand in the vicinity also ignored this cries, assuming it was a part of show.
Silver King: Heart Attack during an Event in 2019
César Cuauhtémoc González Barrón was a Mexican actor and wrestler who went by Silver King. He notably featured in the popular comedy movie Nacho Libre as the villain to Jack Black’s lead character.
Silver King passed away in 2019 from a fatal heart attack after collapsing on stage during a London live performance. It was tragic, but his death led to improvements in the Mexican wrestling scene. Every event is now accompanied by paramedics and ambulances as well as doctors, trained referees and qualified medical personnel.
Alexander Woollcott, cerebral hemorrhage in 1943 during a performance
Woollcott was an American drama critic, political commentator, actor, and playwright who sadly died whilst on air for the CBS Radio program The People’s Platform in 1943.
Woollcott, a reputed host of the program made the opening remarks. The debate on the rise and fall of Adolf Hitler continued in the usual way. Woolcott’s silence for the rest was not known to the audience. died A cerebral hemorrhage is a serious condition.
Sid James suffered a heart attack in 1976 during a performance
James was an actor and comedian from South Africa who lived in Britain. He was touring with his production The Mating Season when, at Sunderland Empire Theatre in 1976, he suffered a fatal heart attack.
The live audience was again in the dark. He began to laugh at the co-stars improvising lines.
Richard Versalle suffered a heart attack in 1996 during a performance
Versalle is an American actor, opera singer who passed away in 1996 during a stage performance of The Makropulos Case. Versalle had reportedly just finished singing the line ‘You can only live so long’ when he fell from a 20-foot ladder after suffering a heart attack.
They thought it was a part of the performance. It was the production manager who had to activate the fire alarm to get everyone out of the building.
Kenneth Horne : Heart Attack during Awards Ceremony in 1969
Horne was an actor and comedian from Britain. He was presenting the annual Guild of Television Producers’ and Directors’ Awards at the Dorchester Hotel in London when he fell from the podium after suffering a cardiac arrest.
Only moments before the heart attack, Horne urged the audience to tune in to the next season of his radio series, which was coming up in just a few months’ time, when he collapsed.
It is rare, but tragic, that actors or artists die on stage. Irma Bue is one of two artists who have died that are not on this list. She assumed that the snake was de-fanged when she got bitten in 2016. Leslie Harvey is another musician who got electrocuted after touching the metallic guitar strings of his instrument with a microphone that was not grounded.
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