On April 15, 1984, Tommy Cooper sank to the floor in the middle of his act on a live ITV variety show from Her Majesty’s Theatre in London. The audience laughed, because Cooper’s act was built on things going wrong. He had suffered a heart attack and was 63. Millions of viewers had watched it happen. Cooper is the best-known case in Britain, but performers have died in front of audiences on every continent.
1. Les Harvey (May 3, 1972)
Les Harvey was the guitarist in the Scottish band Stone the Crows, and the younger brother of Alex Harvey. During a soundcheck before a show at Swansea’s Top Rank Ballroom, he touched a microphone that was not earthed while holding his guitar and was electrocuted. He was 27. Maggie Bell, the band’s singer and his partner, was with him.
2. Jackie Wilson (collapsed September 29, 1975)
Jackie Wilson, whose voice carried “Reet Petite” and “(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher”, had a heart attack on stage at the Latin Casino in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, while singing “Lonely Teardrops”. He hit his head as he fell. He spent the rest of his life in a semi-conscious state and died in January 1984, more than eight years later.
3. Tommy Cooper (April 15, 1984)
Cooper’s collapse was broadcast live on Live from Her Majesty’s. The cameras stayed on him for some time before the programme cut to an advert break, and the show carried on while he was carried backstage. He was pronounced dead on arrival at Westminster Hospital.
4. Dick Shawn (April 17, 1987)
The American comedian Dick Shawn, best known as Lorenzo St. DuBois in Mel Brooks’ The Producers, fell face down on stage at the University of California, San Diego, during a routine about the end of the world. The audience thought it was part of the act. He had suffered a heart attack and died that night, aged 63.
5. Dimebag Darrell (December 8, 2004)
Darrell Abbott, the guitarist of Pantera, was playing with his new band, Damageplan, at the Alrosa Villa club in Columbus, Ohio, when a gunman climbed on stage and shot him. Three other people were killed before a police officer shot the gunman. Abbott was 38.
6. Miriam Makeba (November 10, 2008)
Miriam Makeba sang at a concert in Castel Volturno, near Naples, in support of Roberto Saviano, the writer who had exposed the Camorra. After her set, which ended with “Pata Pata”, she collapsed as she was leaving the stage and died of a heart attack at a nearby clinic, aged 76.
7. Papa Wemba (April 24, 2016)
The Congolese rumba star collapsed during his first song at the FEMUA festival in Abidjan on the night of April 23, 2016, and died on the way to hospital. He was 66. Video of the collapse, with his dancers continuing for some seconds before they realised what had happened, was shared across Africa within hours.
8. Christina Grimmie (June 10, 2016)
Christina Grimmie, a singer who became famous on YouTube and on The Voice, was signing autographs after a concert in Orlando, Florida, when a man shot her. She was 22. The gunman then killed himself. Two days later, a different gunman attacked the Pulse nightclub in the same city.
In at least three of these cases, Cooper, Shawn and Wemba, the people watching did not realise at first that anything was wrong, because the collapse looked like part of the show.