Below is a list of notable people who died whilst "onstage" (not necessarily literally on a stage, but while being watched by an audience or cameras during a performance of some sort).[1]
1559: King Henry II of France died during a jousting match, when the other jouster's lance broke, and the severed end of the lance entered the King's helmet, going into his brain.[2]
1673: Moliere, Frenchplaywright and actor, collapsed during the fourth performance of his brand-new play, Le Malade Imaginaire (The Hypochondriac). He was rushed to his home, where he suffered a coughing fit, and then died.[3]
1912: Austrian tailor Franz Reichelt tested out his own type of parachute by jumping off of the Eiffel Tower. Cameras watched as the parachute failed to open and he plunged to his death.[5]
1943: Alexander Woolcott suffered a heart attack during a radio show in which he and four other individuals had a discussion about Hitler. The hundreds of people who were listening were oblivious to the fact that anything was out of the ordinary. Several listeners reported that Woolcott, known for being strongly opinionated, was unusually quiet.[6]
Mid 20th Century
1951: Concert pianist Simon Barere dies of a cerebral hemorrhage at Carnegie Hall while playing Grieg's A minor piano concerto.
1954: Blues star Johnny Ace became inebriated during a break in his performance, and decided to play a game of Russian roulette. He accidentally shot himself in the head and died. [7]
1958: Popular actor Tyrone Power suffered a heart attack while filming a fencing scene in a film entitled Solomon and Sheba. He died soon after being loaded onto the ambulance, at the age of 44. [8]
1959: Eduard von Beinum, conductor at the Royal Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, became sick after the second movement of a Johannes Brahms symphony. He died immediately after stepping off the podium. [10]
1960: Famed singer Leonard Warren expired after performing his aria in the second act of the opera La forza del destino at the New York Metropolitan Opera. He was then to perform Don Carlo's act III aria, which begins Morir, tremenda cosa ("to die, a momentous thing"), when he started coughing and gasping. He fell face first to the ground, and it was revealed he had died of a massive heart attack. [11]
1965: Stunt pilotPaul Mantz died during the filming of the movie Flight of the Phoenix, when his plane became overstressed, split in two, crashed into a dune, and disintegrated. [12]
1967: Actor and singer Nelson Eddy died of a stroke while performing in Miami. [13]
Also that year, longevity expert Jerome Rodale was quoted as saying, "I'm going to live to be 100, unless I'm run over by a sugar-crazed Taxi driver." Soon after, he was a guest on the Dick Cavett Show. After his interview was done, Pete Hamill was being interviewed by Cavett when, according to urban legend, Rodale appeared to fall asleep. Cavett quipped "Are we boring you, Mr. Rodale?" Cavett says this is incorrect; the initial reaction to Rodale was fellow guest Pete Hamill noticing something was wrong, and saying in a low voice to Cavett, "This looks bad." The episode was never aired. [15]
1974: During her morning news show, Christine Chubbuck, a 29-year-old news anchor, announced "In keeping with Channel 40's policy of bringing you the latest in blood and guts, you are going to see another first. Attempted suicide." She then shot herself in the head with a revolver on live television.[17]
1978: Karl Wallenda died while walking on a wire that was suspended 123 feet (37.5 m) in the air, between two buildings in San Juan, Puerto Rico, after he lost balance and fell to his death.[19]
1979: ABC television journalist Bill Stewart was in Nicaragua, filming about the war destruction, when he and his interpreter Juan Espinosa were executed by a National Guard soldier. Stewart's crew managed to film the incident, and it was aired on international news stations repeatedly in the following days.[20]
1982: Actor Vic Morrow and two child actors were killed after a helicopter crashed into them while filming the Twilight Zone: The Movie.
1984: Magician and comedian Tommy Cooper suffered a heart attack during a Live From Her Majesty's performance, where millions of viewers watched. Known for having humorous acts where everything goes wrong, the audience thought for a long time that his death was just part of the act. Efforts to revive him backstage failed, and he was taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival.
Actor Jon-Erik Hexum died when, during the taping of an episode of the TV series Cover Up, he jokingly put a prop gun to his temple and pulled the trigger. Wadding from the blanks was driven into his skull, and he died of brain damage. Cover Up did not last long, and was canceled in 1985.
1985: Yoshiuki Takada was performing The Dance of Birth and Death with a Tokyo artistic troupe, on the side of Seattle's Mutual Life building. His rope broke, and he fell six stories to his death.[21]
1986: Radio traffic reporter Jane Dornacker's helicopter plunged into the Hudson River while she was giving a live, on-air report. The pilot survived, but Dornacker died on the way to the hospital. [22]
1987: Politician Budd Dwyer infamously shot himself in the mouth with a revolver while being filmed for a press conference. His last words were "This will hurt someone." The footage was widely circulated and shown on news stations across the country. It has appeared on the internet and in numerous films.
Comedian Dick Shawn fell down during his act and accidentally struck his head on the stage. His body lay on stage for five minutes until the audience realized that it was not part of his act. He died later in a hospital, of a heart attack.
1990: Amateur magician Joseph W. Burrus died when, in his act, he was put in a plastic coffin which was then buried underground, beneath seven tons of soil and concrete. The level of the soil suddenly dropped, and by the time rescuers reached Burrus, he had been crushed.
1991: Legendary comic Redd Foxx, best known for his role in Sanford and Son suffered a heart attack while on the set of his new up-and-coming sitcom The Royal Family.
1993: Brandon Lee, son of legendary martial artist Bruce Lee, died while filming the movie The Crow. A prop gun misfired, sending the blank cartridge into Lee and immediately killing him. Contrary to urban legend, the footage of his death was not kept in the movie. Instead, they re-shot the scene using a different actor who was killed in the film by a throwing knife.
During filming of Fuji Television's game show "Ucchan-nanchan no yarunara yaraneba" (進め!電波少年), Wong Ka Kui, a band member of Hong Kong's Beyond and Teruyoshi Uchimura, one of the show's hosts, had to walk across a wet and slippery platform. The pair slipped and fell 2.7m to the ground during a game with Ka Kui hitting the ground head first and falling into a coma immediately. He died a week later.[23]
Quebec actor Michel Noël died on the stage of Montreal's Metropolis while performing his popular character "Capitaine Bonhomme".
1995: Stuntman and award-winning sky-surferRob Harris died while filming a Mountain Dew commercial. He played a James Bond-like hero, who was flying when his parachutes failed to open. He fell to his death. Despite rumors, though the commercial does contain footage of Harris, it does not contain any footage of his death.
1996: Singer Tiny Tim suffered a heart attack while turning to leave the stage during a benefit concert in Minneapolis.
1998: Brazilian politician Antario Teodoro Filho was assassinated during a radio show by two men who burst into the studio with revolvers. He was shot dead by 10 bullets.[1]
1999: Professional wrestler Owen Hart died when, while being lowered onto the stage during an event in Kansas City, the mechanism opened early and he fell 78 feet (24 m) onto a top rope, collapsing his lungs. It was revealed he died of blunt force trauma to the chest.[24]
On July 3, 1999, Mark Sandman, bassist and lead vocalist for the band Morphine, collapsed on stage at the Giardini del Principe in Palestrina, Latium, Italy (near Rome) while performing with Morphine. He was soon pronounced dead of a heart attack at the age of 46. [25]
2000: Actor Renato Di Paolo was portraying Judas in a play outside of Rome on the day before Easter. During the hanging scene he accidentally hung himself.[26]
2004: The ex-guitarist of metal band Pantera, "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott, was murdered by a gunman while performing with his new band Damageplan at the Al Rosa Villa in Columbus, Ohio.[28]
2006: The "Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin died while he was filming a documentary for the Animal Planet television channel. A stingray had thrust its barb into Irwin's heart. All footage of his injury and death was destroyed by his wife Terri Irwin. The documentary he was filming did eventually air. [29]
