Performers Who Died In Front Of Their Audiences

How devastated would you be if you went to see your favorite performer and they popped it right in front of you? If you’d seen any of these sports stars, singers, or something a little extra who we've covered in this article, that’s exactly what could’ve happened. Prepare for a somber one as we take a look at performers who died in front of their audiences.

Edith Webster Died On Stage Performing Her Death Scene

One performance that stuck in the audience's memories was Edith Webster in The Drunkard. You’ve probably never heard of Webster; she never made a significant name for herself in her lifetime. But she’s well remembered for how she exited stage left. At the ripe old age of 60, Webster was in her eighth year playing the role of the grandmother at the Towson Moose Lodge, Baltimore.

Towards the end of the second act, she’d sing a rather moving song called “Please Don’t Talk About Me When I’m Gone,” before dramatically slumping to the floor as if dead. However, on November 24rd, 1986, when Edith sang her big number and slumped to the floor, the audience went wild, and she kind of just stayed there. When her co-stars began calling for help, the audience assumed it was part of the script. Then it dawned on them. Edith had suffered perhaps the most ironic heart attack ever known.

Even more shockingly, this wasn’t the first time it had happened. A few years prior she’d suffered another heart attack during the show and hadn’t sought any treatment until that evening. It’s tragic this leading lady was laid to rest, but still, what a spectacular way to go!

When Dick Cavett's Guest Dropped Dead

They say a long, healthy life is a happy one. Maybe that’s why the queue for my local Erewhon goes around the block. Still, if $18 smoothies aren’t your jam, maybe taking a leaf out of J. I. Rodale’s book is. This American author was the OG advocate of organic produce and sustainable farming. He preached a general weariness about government, science, and business’s role in food production, and was skeptical about the use of pesticides in our foods.

Rodale had good advice, but he wasn’t exempt from falling deep into the loony rabbit hole. He spouted nonsense like seltzer was bad for your eyes, and that polio could be cured through a good diet, neither of which are true, just to be clear.

But perhaps his most ludicrous assertion came while taping an interview for the Dick Cavett Show on June 7th, 1971. 72-year-old Rodale was in a boastful mood, stating his health was so great that unless he was hit by a sugar-crazed taxi driver he’d live until he was 100. However, immediately after his interview, Rodale was sitting behind the next guest when he let out a massive impromptu snoring sound and slumped over.

Always one for a practical joke, the audience assumed Rodale was just messing about. When he stopping moving though, people became concerned. Turns out, he’d suffered a shock heart attack directly after boasting about his perfect health. Looks like Papa Organic became worm food a lot sooner than he anticipated. Still, you’d imagine it’s what he would’ve wanted.

Pop Star Bitten By A King Cobra

There’s a style of Indonesian pop music called dangdut that’s caught wide attention for all the wrong reasons. Sadly, Dangdut artists don’t have the glitzy, glamorous lives of US charting artists, something local artist Irma Bule knew all too well. Dangdut artists typically make around $20 per performance, but there’s a bonus $5 in that if you perform with a snake.

A special snake handler would provide a non-venomous python with its mouth taped shut. However, on one occasion in 2016 there must’ve been some confusion. Bule went onstage with a King Cobra that was still fanged, venomous, and wasn’t taped up. During just her second song, she was bitten by the venomous snake. Despite this, Bule powered through her set, but 45 minutes after being bitten she became violently sick.

She was rushed to hospital where she sadly succumbed to the poisoning later that evening. Why this snake didn’t undergo the same procedure as others isn’t clear. But for 29-year-old Bule and the 3 young children she left behind, this was a fatal, fatal mistake. That’s heartbreaking.

Sam Patch's Last Leap

Sam Patch was a famous 19th century American daredevil who got his start as a child in a cotton mill. When he wasn’t forced to do dangerous work he’d entertain the other boys he worked with by jumping off the mill dam into the water below.

By his early 20s he was jumping into bodies of water from even higher spots and had started to gather a small crowd. On September 30th, 1827 he jumped the 70-foot Passaic Falls in New Jersey, and in 1828, he jumped 100 feet at Hoboken, New Jersey which earned him the nickname Patch the Jersey Jumper.

By now, his performances were drawing even bigger crowds, but his career didn’t fully take off until 1829 when Patch attempted his first big jump into the Niagara River. After clearing an 80-foot jump near the base of Niagara Falls he didn’t immediately resurface, panicking onlookers. An anxious wait later however, and one crowd member spotted Patch pulling himself onto the shore. Everybody roared in celebration. After another, bigger, jump from 120 feet into the same river, Patch was practically a household name.

But it all came crashing down on November 13th that year, when Patch attempted his biggest jump yet, a whopping 125-footer into the Genesee River. A huge crowd of 8,000 people had gathered to watch him make a big splash, but according to eyewitnesses, it wasn’t clear whether he jumped or fell from his platform. Either way, he haphazardly plummeted through the air and didn’t enter the water feet first, instead, he hit it with a ferocious slap.

All 8,000 supporters eagerly awaited Patch to burst triumphantly through the surface, like he always did. Only, the great jumper never reappeared. Some began to wonder if he was hiding in a secret cave to drum up excitement for a big reveal. Sadly, that never materialized. It wasn’t until early next Spring that they found Patch in Rochester entirely frozen.

An autopsy revealed that as well as dislocating both his shoulders on impact, the sudden drop in temperature of the water had caused major damage to his blood vessels. Horrific! I guess Sam Patch went for one big splash too many!

Lesley Harvey Electrocuted On Stage

Can you imagine being a rockstar? It just seems like the life! Millions of fans singing your songs back at you. Well, that was the life Scottish guitarist Leslie Harvey had. He played in a number of bands throughout the 1960s and 70s before going on tour supporting Led Zeppelin and being offered to join The Animals, who were one of the biggest bands at the time. This guy was kind of a big deal.

Leslie wanted to do things more on his own terms. He formed his own band called Stone the Crows in 1969 and had a decent amount of success. However, the dream didn’t last long. While on stage with Stone the Crows at Swansea Top Rank in Wales, in 1972, he suffered a shock electrocution when he touched an unearthed microphone.

Now, a quick lesson in electrics. In an earthed system, if there’s a fault or a power surge, the extra electricity can flow into the ground, or earth, via a kind of safety system built along the circuit. It’s just much safer in the case of something going wrong. But unearthed systems are the riding the bike without a helmet of electricity. If there’s a surge in power, there’s nowhere for that power to go.

Sadly, Harvey had one hand on the microphone, and one on the metal guitar strings, meaning he became the place for all that excess electricity to go. One of the roadies tried to unplug the guitar and break the circuit, but he was unsuccessful. At just 27 years old, Harvey’s injuries proved too much to handle. And all because of faulty wiring!

Lightning Kills Football Team

During a soccer game in 1998 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a rather unlikely circumstance called the end of a scrappy 1-1 draw. When a bolt of lightning suddenly struck the pitch, all 11 outfield players for Bena Tshadi collapsed to the floor, and they weren’t diving for a foul like Soccer players normally do. No! The final whistle blew for every single one of them.

Perhaps most shocking of all, was that none of the Basang players were harmed. How? Well, lots of theories emerged as to what might’ve happened, with some even blaming voodoo magic. Surely no Basang supporter is dropping hexes on a soccer game, right? Probably not.

Voodoo is a big part of Congolese culture, but a more likely explanation may lie in the player's cleats. If lightning struck nearby, it may have been slightly more likely to shoot up through metal-studded cleats if one team was exclusively wearing those instead of plastic cleats.

That being said, the difference to conductivity would still be very minimal, and there's no real scientific evidence to suggest this is even possible, nor that each team were wearing different types of cleats. So, while this story was shared by reputable news sources like the BBC, it seems more likely that the original reporting may have been at least slightly inaccurate.

The Flying Wallendas

Karl Wallenda is a German highwire artist who founded his own daredevil circus troupe called the Flying Wallendas. Together they toured Europe, performing dangerous stunts high above the ground, often without a safety net. What if they fell? Well, the Flying Wallendas were willing to take that risk.

They’d perform iconic stunts like the seven-person chair pyramid, where four people would walk along a tightrope in two pairs, each pair bound together by a connecting pole. On each of the two poles, one more person would stand, forming a third pair higher up. This third pair would be bound together with one final pole with a chair on it, which the final person would not sit in, but stand on!

It goes without saying, this was a very dangerous job. And their death-defying stunts often trod the line on being defying. In 1962, a terrible accident happened while performing the seven-person chair pyramid. Two Wallenda members, Dieter Schepp and Richard Faughnan, didn’t see another day, and many others were injured.

However, despite a lengthy list of injuries and worse, Karl never swayed on his rejection of fundamental safety measures. In 1974, at the grand old age of 69, he broke a skywalk distance world record when he travelled 1,800 feet without a harness! Imagine your grandpa trying to do that!

Sadly though, it all came crashing down when Karl attempted to cross a wire stretched 121 feet high between two towers of the ten-story Condado Plaza Hotel in Puerto Rico. Despite whipping high winds, the by-now 73-year-old Karl, which is far too old to be doing this nonsense, was adamant he’d cross without any safety precautions. Whoever secured the wire hadn’t tightened it enough though and it came loose. Karl fell and was announced dead by the time he made it to the hospital.

Tommy Cooper Dies On Stage

At a whopping height of 6 foot 4 inches and rarely seen without his trademark Red Fez, Welsh prop magician and comedian, Tommy Cooper, was a distinctive-looking act. He started dabbling in magic during his time in the British Army, and quickly ascended the ranks becoming a member of the coveted British magicians’ society, The Magic Circle. But things in his life really took off once Cooper began working in television in 1948.

Tommy Cooper Jokes by MagicTommyCooper

His specialty was performing magic tricks that went a little bit wrong to get laughs from the audience. Look, it’s not my thing, but during his heyday in the 1970s, Cooper was selling out packed arenas. However, this was also when his health began to deteriorate. A very heavy drinker and smoker, Cooper’s habits started getting the better of him. He’d turn up to shows late and rush through the set in 5 minutes. Slowly, work began to dry up.

However, in 1984, Cooper landed a huge gig at the HM Theater in Westminster which was being broadcast live to a staggering 12 million people. Halfway through his set, an assistant handed him a gown for a gag and Cooper collapsed shortly afterwards.

Believing it was just one of Cooper’s silly antics, the audience erupted in raucous laughter. However, when Cooper didn’t get up, it slowly dawned on them that something wasn’t right. The live broadcast quickly cut to an unscripted commercial break, and the crowd began to mutter concernedly.

Cooper had suffered a fatal heart attack on stage, and no one believed him. The last thing he’d have heard was his audience, who’d followed him for 40 loyal years, roaring with laughter one final time. Obviously, it’s shocking, but there’s something oddly romantic about a comedian spending their final moments listening to their doting fans in stitches. It’s the definition of “died doing what he loved”, undoubtedly.

Ian Cognito Dies On Stage

Cooper’s not the only comedian to go out on his last gag. English Comedian, Ian Cognito, real name Paul Barbieri, had an even stranger send-off. Cognito never really reached the heights of Cooper’s career, he was a much more underground act. However, he was highly regarded by his peers.

A notoriously aggressive and abrasive character, he was known for really pushing the boundaries and became notorious as Britain’s most banned comic. However, it all came to an end in 2019 when Cognito was performing at the Lone Wolf Comedy Club in Bicester, England. Just minutes after making a joke about having a stroke and dying on stage right there, Cognito died right there.

He’d suffered an aortic dissection, where a tear in the aorta coming out of the heart leads to a sudden drop in blood pressure. Cognito collapsed on stage, and just like Cooper, the audience believed it was part of the act. After his death, fellow comics flooded their socials with supportive messages about the influence Cognito had on their careers. What a hero!

Barbara Weldens Electrocuted On Stage

Being an up-and-coming musician is a tough gig. Playing in bars to 7 people and a dog and navigating sleazy record company executives isn’t my idea of fun. But when you get that big break, that’s got to feel amazing! Sadly, for Barbara Weldens, a French singer-songwriter, her big break ended up being rather grizzly. She’d just released her first studio album and had been touring festival sets hoping to find an audience for her craft.

On July 19th, 2017, she was performing in a church in the town of Gourdon in Southwest France at the Leo Ferre festival. Suddenly, she collapsed out of nowhere. What happened? Well, Barbara had a habit of performing barefooted and she unfortunately trod on a defective piece of electrical equipment. Electricity surged through her body, and Barbara’s set and career was cut tragically short.

Owen Heart In-Ring Death

Being a ring announcer is harder than it looks but it’s probably even harder when things go wrong. And that’s exactly what happened during the Over the Edge PPV event in 1999. The plan was for iconic Canadian Wrestler, Owen Hart to descend from the rafters at the Kempner Arena, in Kansas City, on a safety harness until he hovered just above the ring. Hart would then act entangled in the rope, before freeing himself and falling flat on his face. However, it went terribly wrong.

In order for the stunt to work, the harness had to have a quick release so Hart could flop down after getting stuck. But, it’s thought that Hart, who was wearing a very cumbersome cape, might’ve wriggled about in his harness to get comfortable. Whatever happened, the quick release triggered 78 feet above the ring and Hart fell until a nasty collision with the top rope stopped him in his tracks.

Legendary wrestling commentator, Jim Ross, immediately told those watching that this wasn’t scripted and that Hart was in serious danger. Hart sadly passed from his injuries. Luckily, TV viewers never saw the fall. The broadcast was showing a pre-taped video which was also being displayed on huge monitors at the arena for the attending fans. Still, the announcement shook wrestling fans across the world.

No matter how much people tell you it’s fake, or choreographed, or staged, these guys put their bodies on the line time and time again for your entertainment.

Colonel Bruce Hampton Dies During Birthday Concert

Colonel Bruce Hampton was a huge figure in Atlanta’s jam band scene and collaborated with hundreds of artists over the years. The Colonel was set to play a star-packed concert on May 1st, 2017, in celebration of his 70th birthday. However, this turned out to be his last Hurrah.

During the encore at the end of the show, then-13-year-old guitar prodigy Brandon Niederauer was taking an impressive solo. Colonel suddenly lay down at the boy’s feet, which many saw as a comedic gesture of respect to Niederauer tearing it up.

Only the solo finished, and the Colonel sorta just stayed there. Unbeknownst to everyone else, he’d suffered a massive heart attack and inadvertently ruined his own birthday party! I guess on the bright side he was surrounded by all his friends. Still, that’s one way to drop a turd in your own punchbowl.

Thomas Macarte: Lion Tamer Killed By His Lions

For Thomas Macarte, life on the wild side didn’t exactly go as planned. He’d spent years in the traveling circus working with lions. That might sound like a fun job, but tough days shoveling lion poop will take a toll on any man. As would the constant fear of becoming the poop.

On November 20th, 1862, Macarte had his first brush with misfortune. He was part of a touring circus in Liverpool, England, and as he passed the cage one of the lionesses seized him by the arm. He suffered such terrible injuries that he had to have his arm amputated.

But that wasn't the end of his lion-taming career. Macarte carried on with one arm. He was however severely traumatized by this accident and often got blind drunk in order to perform. A little Dutch courage is one thing, but Macarte was in so deep it seriously clouded his judgement. He had this terrible habit of turning his back on the big cats, so if he lost control, he’d be dinner in no time. And that’s kind of what happened.

On January 3rd, 1872, Macarte was due to perform in front of 500 people in Bolton. After doing a bit of crowd work he entered the cage and, well, you can guess what happened next. It took 15 minutes to rescue him from the hungry lions, and he tragically succumbed to his injuries on his way to the hospital. I thought the circus was meant to be a fun place! That would seriously ruin your day!

Ballerinas On Fire In 1861

On September 14th, 1861, a massive crowd of 1,500 packed into The Continental Theater, now the Walnut Street Theater, in Philadelphia to watch a performance of Shakespeare’s The Tempest. The show was a grand spectacle, and producer William Wheatley hired a huge ensemble of ballet dancers to perform, including four sisters, Ruth, Abeona, Hannah, and Cecilia Gale.

The four sisters were under the age of 23, and highly accomplished dancers who’d come over from England for touring shows before settling in Philly. But on this night, as they were getting ready for the performance in the dressing room, disaster struck.

One of the sisters was reaching for a piece of her costume when the gauze of her dress came into contact with a gas lamp. These were pre-electricity days, so indoor, artificial lighting came from burning gas fuels like this. Because gauze materials are extremely porous, they’re exceptionally flammable. So, as the other sisters and dancers tried to help extinguish the rapidly spreading flames, the blaze spread among them.

Shortly, the whole dressing room was engulfed. One dancer ran towards the stage, but that was where the audience was! All 1,500 people were hastily ushered out before the theatre itself was burnt to the ground. As for the dancers, things didn’t end so great for them.

The four sisters, and five other talented ballet dancers sadly never escaped the inferno. That’s horrible. The only silver lining is that nobody in the audience suffered the same gruesome fate. As for the theatre, it reopened again in 1865 but suffered a further three devastating fires before the end of the century. It sounds like it’s cursed! You should never take having lightbulbs for granted!

I hope you were amazed at the performers who died in front of their audiences. Thanks for reading!