Broadway star Nick Cordero dies at 41 following a long battle with coronavirus

Nick Cordero, a Tony-nominated Broadway star, who had admirers across the world rallying for his recovery, died July 5 at a hospital in Los Angeles. The Canadian actor's wife Amanda Kloots confirmed on social media on Sunday night that the father-of-one passed away at the age of 41 after a 95-days-long battle against COVID-19. God has another angel in heaven now. My darling husband passed away this morning she wrote on Instagram. He was surrounded in love by his family, singing and praying as he gently left this earth.

According to The Washington Post, Cordero had been hospitalized since late March and was diagnosed with COVID-19. Kloots posted regular updates of her husband's condition on her social media accounts, documenting all the ups and downs he went through over the past three months. She also launched a daily-singalong in which a number of his fans and well-wishers took part with the hashtag #wakeupnick to show their support for the family during the six weeks Cordero was in a medically induced coma. 

Born in Hamilton, Ontario, on September 17, 1978, Cordero studied acting at Ryerson University in Toronto for a couple of years before dropping out to play guitar and sing with his rock band, Lovemethod. He turned his attention to acting again in the early 2000s, performing in Canadian stage productions and appearing in an episode of the Showtime series Queer as Folk. He was cast in a New Jersey production of The Toxic Avenger after moving to New York City in 2007 in which he played a comically deformed crusader against environmental destruction.

While he left his mark on TV through shows such as Lilyhammer, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and the police drama Blue Bloods, he was best known for his work on Broadway. He earned a Tony nomination for the 2014 musical Bullets Over Broadway, in which he played the character of Cheech, a tap-dancing mob enforcer who dumps rival gangsters into the noxious Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn. He met Kloots while they were both performing in Bullets Over Broadway and the couple tied the knot in 2017, two years after which they became parents to their son Elvis.

I am in disbelief and hurting everywhere. My heart is broken as I cannot imagine our lives without him. Nick was such a bright light. He was everyone’s friend, loved to listen, help, and especially talk. He was an incredible actor and musician, Kloots wrote on Instagram Sunday. He loved his family and loved being a father and husband. Elvis and I will miss him in everything we do, every day.

I cannot begin to thank everyone enough for the outpour of love, support, and help we’ve received these last 95 days. You have no idea how much you lifted my spirits at 3 p.m. every day as the world sang Nick's song, Live Your Life. We sang it to him today, holding his hands. As I sang the last line to him, 'they'll give you hell but don't you light them kill your light not without a fight. Live your life,' I smiled because he definitely put up a fight. I will love you forever and always my sweet man, she added.

Tragedy struck Cordero just as he was on the cusp of an even more prominent career in Broadway. Speaking to the Toronto Star after receiving the Tony nomination, he revealed that had he not been cast in Bullets Over Broadway, he would probably be working in real estate somewhere. "I guess I was always hoping for a moment like this, but I kept wondering if it was ever going to happen," he said, "But now that it’s come along, it seems like a validation of my whole career, everything I worked for and struggled for all these years."