Adrian Bailey, the singer, actor and dancer whose lengthy profession in Broadway musicals ended when he fell by means of a lure door and suffered severe accidents earlier than a manufacturing of The Little Mermaid, has died. He was 67.
Bailey died Sunday at a rehabilitation facility in New York on the day earlier than his birthday, his brother Karl Bailey instructed The Hollywood Reporter. He had not too long ago fallen in his New York house.
A local of Detroit, Bailey made his Broadway debut in 1976 in Your Arms Too Quick to Field With God.
He then appeared in Refined Women, My One and Solely, Legs Diamond and Prince of Central Park within the Eighties; in Black and Blue, Jelly’s Final Jam, The Who’s Tommy, Kiss of the Spider Girl and Smokey Joe’s Café within the Nineteen Nineties; and in The Wild Get together, La Cage aux Folles and Sizzling Ft within the 2000s.
Bailey was an understudy within the function of King Triton and a member of the Little Mermaid ensemble on Might 10, 2008, when he walked by means of a open lure door on a suspended boat and landed on the stage 36 ft beneath simply earlier than the beginning of a matinee efficiency on the Lunt-Fontanne Theater.
Bailey shortly underwent surgical procedure on his wrists. 4 months later, he sued Disney, which produced the present, and the businesses that constructed the units and motion-control techniques. In his go well with, he mentioned he additionally suffered quite a few fractures of his again, hip, pelvis, coccyx, sternum, ribs and foot and herniated vertebral discs that required no less than 5 surgical procedures.
“My life has been modified perpetually,” Bailey mentioned on the time. “It’s going to by no means be the identical. My fast objective is to one way or the other have the ability to stroll as much as my very own house and take care of myself. I attempt to keep optimistic.”
Bailey’s brother mentioned he was finally in a position to stroll once more however was unable to journey for longer than two hours at a time, which brought on him to overlook their mom’s funeral. “I do know he wished to go to that,” he mentioned.
Rising up, Bailey took dance and voice classes whereas attending Osborn Excessive College and the College of Detroit Mercy. “Proper out of highschool, he was on his method to New York,” his brother mentioned. “He all the time knew what he wished.”
Bailey additionally appeared in The Wiz (1978) and The Kings of Brooklyn (2004) and within the 1991 HBO telefilm The Josephine Baker Story, starring Lynn Whitfield.
Along with Karl, survivors embrace two different brothers, Louis and Frank, and a sister, Angela.
Bailey “struggled for his life for years relearning EVERYTHING,” Lucie Arnaz Luckinbill, who appeared with him in My One and Solely, wrote on Instagram. “He survived many years longer than they predicted as a result of he was Adrian Bailey.”