Performers Who Died In Front Of Their Audiences

Part of what makes a concert, particularly one in a small club or venue, so exciting is the intimacy between band and audience. Nothing separates the musicians from the crowd. The downside? Sometimes, there's less emphasis on security. On December 8, 2004, the rock band Damageplan — formed after the breakup of the popular metal band Pantera by Pantera's guitarist, "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott — took the stage at Alrosa Villa, a club in Columbus, Ohio. 

A 25-year-old ex-Marine named Nathan Gale sneaked into the club with a gun and made his way onto the stage, opening fire on Abbott just 90 seconds into Damageplan's set. Abbott, 38, died that night, and so did three other people: concert-goer Nathan Bray, band crew member Jeff Thompson, and Alrosa Villa employee Erin Halk. Gale, whose mother said he was discharged from the military due to mental health issues, also died, shot and killed by a police officer. Though several theories about Gale's motivations were floated, none of them could be conclusively proven.

There's nothing more metal than dying on stage while playing metal. Nick Menza was so metal that he was once a member of Megadeth. He was behind the kit for the major metal band throughout the '90s, playing on highly regarded albums like Rust in Peace and Countdown to Extinction. Apart from Megadeth, Menza played with several bands, including Chodle's Trunk, Fear Assembly, Orphaned to Hatred, and OHM. It was during a gig with OHM in May 2016 that Menza's heart gave out. The 51-year-old collapsed onstage during the third song of the band's set at a show in Studio City, California, and he was pronounced dead upon arrival at a nearby hospital.

In the mid-20th century, Jerome Rodale (also known as J.I. Rodale) advocated some health habits considered pretty out-there at the time but which are totally normal now: eating foods that weren't loaded with antibiotics or eating local. Rodale wrote and spoke for years about how those and other healthy practices would extend his life span. On a taping of ABC's The Dick Cavett Show on June 7, 1971, for example, the 72-year-old longevity guru claimed that he "never felt better" and that he'd "live to a hundred." Unfortunately, Rodale didn't quite make it to 100 — he died a few minutes after making that statement. Rodale stayed on stage while Cavett interviewed another guest, staying quiet until he let out some kind of ghastly, guttural noise. He'd gone pale and his mouth hung open, and yeah ... Rodale died right there on the set of The Dick Cavett Show in front of a live studio audience. 

Comedian Dick Shawn put together a full evening of entertainment for the audience of 500 or so people that paid to see him perform at UC San Diego in April 1987. First, he did a sketch where he played a disembodied head on a dinner table, then he comically danced out of time to some music. Next, Shawn launched into a routine about the end of the world, during which he lay down on the stage and stayed completely still. The audience thought it was part of the bit, that Shawn was pretending to be dead. The end of the world is about people being dead, after all. 

Tom Wartelle, a guy in that audience, told the LA Times, "There were comments from the audience like, 'Take his wallet'" and that "it all blended in very well" with Shawn's act. But then, after five minutes of Shawn not moving, the heckles and laughter pretty much stopped. A doctor rushed onto the stage, tried to find a pulse, and then flipped Shawn onto his back. The audience was ordered out while Shawn received CPR. An ambulance arrived in short order and took Shawn to the closest hospital. Less than two hours after Shawn first took the stage, he was pronounced dead at age 57.

Owen Hart was among the most popular and dynamic wrestlers in the WWE in the 1990s (and, alongside his brother, Bret "The Hitman" Hart, part of a wrestling legacy). He was a major draw at the May 1999 "Over the Edge" pay-per-view event, set to appear as an obnoxious superhero character, under the guise of which he'd be lowered from the rafters into the ring via an elaborate wire system. But the rigging tragically malfunctioned, sending the "Blue Blazer" plunging 78 feet. He fell onto the top rope, and then into the ring. 

The 16,000 strong in Kansas City's Kemper Arena went quiet, and announcer Jim Ross horrifyingly had to tell the crowd that Hart's fall was not scripted, a stunt, or fake in any way. (Those watching the event on TV didn't see the fall — the broadcast was showing highlights of Hart's past matches to build up drama before his big entrance.) Hart was pronounced dead at a local hospital. He had recently celebrated his 34th birthday.

Tiny Tim was one of the most unique performers to ever score a hit record. A tall (hence the ironic stage name), stringy-haired man with a high, vibrating, lilting voice, his version of an old standard called "Tip-Toe Thru' the Tulips with Me" hit No. 17 on the Billboard pop chart in 1968. (Adding to the bizarro, Tiny Tim accompanied himself on the ukulele.) A year later, the unlikely celebrity married a 17-year-old fan, Vicki, on The Tonight Show, a moment seen by 21.4 million households, then a ratings record for Johnny Carson. 

Tiny Tim was a memorable guy and he died as he lived: entertaining others. On November 30, 1996, Tiny Tim played a benefit show for the Women's Club of Minneapolis. While singing "Tip-Toe Thru' the Tulips with Me," Tiny Tim abruptly stopped playing, then told his wife (Susan Khaury; he and Vicki had divorced years earlier) he didn't feel well. Then the 64-year-old performer collapsed, dying a few hours later at a Minneapolis hospital, likely of cardiac arrest.

In March 2015, two of the biggest stars of the AAA, the Mexican wrestling federation equivalent to the WWE, met in the ring:  Hijo del Perro Aguayo (Pedro Aguayo Ramirez) vs. Rey Mysterio Jr. (Oscar Gutiérrez). During the match, the legendary Mysterio delivered a powerful flying kick that sent Aguayo careening into the ropes. The wrestler's head hit the ropes, and he appeared to have suffered snapped vertebrae. After he lay in the ring unresponsive, Mysterio and the referee sensed something had gone very wrong and summoned help. The on-call doctor took an agonizingly long 80 seconds to reach and treat Aguayo, but it was all too late. According to the Tijuana Wrestling Commission, the cause of death was a heart attack, triggered by a cervical stroke, which occurred when the wrestler's neck broke.

Aguayo was arguably the most well-known rudo, or villain, in the AAA. He was 35 years old.

When a professional daredevil dies in front of an audience, it's just as horrifying and sad as when an actor or singer dies, but perhaps not as surprising. In 1827, Sam Patch became one of the first famous daredevils, regularly jumping off a ledge over Passaic Falls in New Jersey into the water below. As time went on, his jumps became ever more ambitious, so he attracted larger and larger crowds. In 1829, Patch and his team announced the entertainer's "last jump": On Friday, November 13, he would hurl himself 125 feet off a platform overlooking the High Falls of the Genesee River in Rochester, New York. 

Now, "last jump" was supposed to mean it was Patch's final attempt of the season. But fate or the universe or something took that word far too literally. According to a report of the jump from the New York Evening Post, in mid-descent, Patch's body "began to droop, his arms were extended, and his legs separated." In other words, his form was way off ... and then he hit the water wrong. He never emerged. Four months later and 6 miles downriver, Patch's body finally surfaced in a block of ice. An autopsy concluded that Patch had suffered a ruptured blood vessel mid-fall due to the sudden shock of the cold November air.

Back in the '50s and '60s, Wheeler was one of the great country music sidemen, back when they still called it "country and Western music." While he recorded lots of solo material, the guitarist and harmonica player backed Johnny Cash, Ray Acuff, and George Jones, among others, and the legendary Lefty Frizzell had a huge hit with a song Wheeler wrote called "Run 'Em Off." In the '70s and '80s, Wheeler lived in Nashville and performed regularly at the city's iconic Grand Ole Opry. There's probably no better way for a true-blue country music lifer to go out than while performing at the Opry, which is what Wheeler did. While recording the Rev. Jimmie Snow's radio show Grand Ole Gospel Time in 1984, Wheeler suffered a fatal heart attack.

China-born husband-and-wife violinists Yu Zhao Gu and Ying Zhao moved to the Houston area and, among other professional orchestras, joined the Symphony of Southeast Texas in the mid-1990s. That became their "home orchestra," and they were regular contributors to the string section over the years. The two were also stand partners, and so Zhao was right there when, during the symphony's final performance of the season at a theater in Beaumont Texas, on April 6, 2019, her husband suddenly slumped out of his chair and slid to the floor. The musicians immediately stopped playing, and several doctors in the audience rushed to the stage to help, as did a cardiologist in the orchestra. CPR was administered as paramedics made their way to the concert hall. The violinist was rushed to a nearby hospital, but it was too late. Yu Zhao Gu was pronounced dead at the age of 60.

In the early 20th century, Louis Vierne held the most prestigious job possible for a professional church organist: resident organist at the legendary Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris. Despite drawing crowds that wanted to hear Vierne's otherworldly organ work, particularly on his own compositions (he wrote six symphonies), the Catholic Church clergy that ran Notre-Dame decided in 1937 to discontinue all organ recitals. They at least let Vierne play for the people one final time, on June 2, 1937.

Vierne was the Elvis Presley of early 20th-century organists. While Presley struggled with drugs, nutrition, and health problems, Vierne had experienced a string of tragically bad luck. His wife cheated on him, one of his sons died from tuberculosis, and the other died fighting in World War I. A fall so shattered his leg and ankle that he had to relearn his organ pedaling technique, and the stress of it all made him a three-packs-a-day smoker who also relied on heart pills, tranquilizers, and sleeping pills. 

About 3,000 people amassed for Vierne's last concert at Notre-Dame ... which turned out to be his last concert ever. After playing an original piece, he said to his assistant standing nearby, "I'm going to be ill." He then played one low, continuous note ... and didn't stop. He'd died of a heart attack sitting in his favorite seat.

Operas are full of sad, dramatic, even tragic moments — that's kind of opera's whole thing. Baritone Leonard Warren, one of the most famous American opera singers of all time, added to opera's inherent darkness, not to mention its lore, by dying on stage. In March 1960, Warren was singing the role of Don Carlo in the opera La Forza del Destino by the Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi. At about 10 p.m., Warren's voice and body gave out. He fell to the stage floor of the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City immediately after finishing the aria "Urna fatale del mio destino," which translates appropriately to "fatal urn of my destiny." Less than half an hour later, the singer was pronounced dead. Cause of death: a heart attack, according to the Washington Post.

In 1951, famed pianist Simon Barere sat in front of his instrument before a huge audience at Carnegie Hall. (How did he get there? Practice.) Barere was a featured musician performing for the first time with the Philadelphia Orchestra. His playing was masterful, as usual, for the first two minutes and change of the concerto. That's when audience members noticed Barere's tempo growing inconsistent, which is to say nothing of the sour notes. Barere's missteps subsided when he stopped playing entirely and slumped forward, his head crashing into the keyboard before he rolled off the bench and hit the floor. A doctor was, in fact, in the house, and he ran up and helped carry Barere backstage. After half an hour of revival attempts, Barere, 54, was pronounced dead, evidently from a stroke.

Johnny Watson was so skilled at playing his instrument — and in so many different ways — that his nickname was literally "Guitar." After testing out the blues scene as a teenage piano player in Houston, he switched to guitar in the 1950s and started grinding out influential electric blues classics and climbed the R&B charts with hits like "Those Lonely, Lonely Nights," "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy," and "Cuttin' In." Watson reinvented himself in the 1970s as one of the best and earliest purveyors of the genre of music that would be known as funk. Also a '70s style icon, with his wide-brimmed hats, flashy jewelry, and giant sunglasses, Watson brought funk to the masses with groovy, soulful, guitar-powered tunes like "Superman Lover," "A Real Mother for Ya," "Lover Jones," and "Ain't That a B****." Always an innovator, Watson's 1980 single "Telephone Bill" is among the first-ever rap songs.

Watson, who'd slowed down his career pace since the early '80s, toured in 1996, and on May 17 of that year, played a gig in Yokohama, Japan. Shortly after taking the stage and delivering some stage chatter in Japanese (which he claimed to speak in "Ain't That a B****"), Watson collapsed and died from what was later determined to be a heart attack. He was 61.