Canadian Broadway star battled COVID-19
For 90 days, actor Nick Cordero lay in a hospital bed in a medically induced coma while his wife, Amanda Kloots, watched his battle with COVID-19 devastate his health.
Cordero, a Tony-nominated Broadway star from Hamilton, Ont., died Sunday at age 41. He is survived by his wife and son.
Kloots wrote in a post on Instagram that “he was surrounded in love by his family, singing and praying as he gently left this earth.”
Throughout her husband’s time in hospital, Kloots, a fitness trainer and former Radio City Rockette, had posted regular updates on his health, launching a daily singalong with the hashtag #wakeupnick to show support for Cordero during the six weeks he was in a medically induced coma.
Cordero, standing 6-foot-5, with dark hair and a baritone voice, was a menacing presence on TV shows such as Lilyhammer, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and Blue Bloods. But he was best known for his work on Broadway, playing charismatic brutes in musicals including Bullets Over Broadway and A Bronx Tale.
Those roles gave Cordero a chance to take major parts after years of being passed over in favour of shorter actors who, he once joked, looked “better next to the leading lady.” Nonetheless, he was preparing for a fallback career by taking real estate classes.
Born on Sept. 17, 1978, Cordero recalled participating in Latin dances as a boy, dancing with older girls (“I thought I was super cool”) years before he learned to tap-dance for Bullets Over Broadway.
“Theatre kept me out of trouble,” said Cordero.
He attended Ryerson University’s acting program in Toronto for two years before dropping out to play in his rock band, Lovemethod.
In the early aughts, he shifted his focus to acting, performing in Canadian stage productions and appearing in an episode of Queer as Folk before moving to New York City in 2007.
There, he was soon cast in a New Jersey production of The Toxic Avenger, and in 2015 played the Avenging Angelo in the off-broadway musical Brooklynite.