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A new book takes a look at the old adage, 'the show must go on.' Authors Jeff Abraham and Burt Kearns dug into newspaper archives for The Show Won't Go On, which examines performers who die onstage. Above, a newspaper article on April 2, 1938 about actor Joe Greenwald's last performance

In 1673, a famous French playwright collapsed while performing the lead role in his play, betraying its title The Hypochondriac. He died a few hours later.

More recently, an aerial dancer plunged to his death after his harness broke during a music festival. When the day's headliner, Green Day, went on afterward it sparked outrage – although the band insists it didn't know.

Then there are the magicians who perished attempting dangerous feats, the comedians who have actually died onstage, and the many others who stopped singing, acting, conducting and playing an instrument after being stricken.

What if the cliche, 'the show must go on,' wasn't really true? A new book takes a look at an old adage.   

Fifteen years ago, publicist Jeff Abraham was at an Elvis tribute concert when he saw Al Dvorin – a man who made the phrase, 'Elvis had left the building,' famous. Someone asked the announcer when he would write his memoir and Dvorin replied he would, he had time. He was dead the next morning.

'And I said wait a minute, I was just with him 36 hours ago. How can that be? And I thought about people's last performances,' Abraham told DailyMail.com.

He had an idea, title, and, later on, a writing partner, Burt Kearns, but it took until 2016 for the pair to start their research. By January of the next year, they had begun writing what would become The Show Won't Go On: The Most Shocking, Bizarre, and Historic Deaths of Performers Onstage, which is out September 3.

Jane Little, above, earned the Guinness World Record for the 'musician with the longest tenure with an orchestra' on February 4, 2016 – a few days after her 87th birthday, according to a new book, The Show Won't Go On. For 71 years, Little had played double bass for the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. Around three months later, she was playing an encore with the orchestra when she collapsed and then died. Little and her fellow musicians were playing the song, There's No Business Like Show Business

'We became the Rodgers & Hammerstein of death,' said Abraham, referring to the duo known for composing Broadway hits, including for The Sound of Music.

When they first dove into the research and dug into the newspaper archives, they looked at performers who had died on the way to a show, in the dressing room, onstage, and after leaving a performance. But the authors realized there were too many – hundreds – to chronicle.

'We decided to narrow it down to just performers who died onstage… we mean in an arena, in the theater, on live television, before a radio audience, even now on social media,' said Kearns, a film and TV producer and former tabloid journalist. (Abraham represented his 1999 memoir, Tabloid Baby, which Kearns called 'an expose and a mea culpa' of his experiences in the development of tabloid television.)

The book originally included stunt performers, and movie stars and actors who took their final exit during rehearsals and while the cameras were rolling. But those were later cut.

Kearns said The Show Won't Go On has around 60 main stories, some of which reference other deaths, and an appendix of 50.

The authors said there were surprises during their research, including audience members who demanded their money back after a performer died and the show stopped, with Kearns noting it was more common than one would expect.

'When it's happening, people often think that the death or the collapse is part of the show,' Kearns told DailyMail.com.

On the flip side, acts have not been paid or received less because of an untimely demise, Abraham said.

David Burns was a well-known Broadway actor when he stepped on the stage in Philadelphia on March 12, 1971. The duo behind Cabaret was having an 'out-of-town tryout' for their latest musical, 70, Girls, 70, according to a new book, The Show Won't Go On. Burns, 68, was singing and dancing toward the end of the second act when he spun, 'clutched his chest and fell to the stage. It was a heart attack,' the authors wrote. Burns, who won two Tony awards, was known for his role in 1964's Hello Dolly opposite Carol Channing, seen above

Another maxim that the authors investigated is whether a performer who died doing what they loved was a consolation for their relatives.

'We spoke to daughters and sons of people who died onstage 30 years ago and during the interview, they'd cry,' Kearns said.

'Many people took some comfort in it, but most of the time they said, well, yeah, it was great that they died doing what they loved but, you know, they really had so much more to give and really wished they were still around.'

Bob Einstein, an actor known for playing Marty Funkhouser in Curb Your Enthusiasm, took no solace in the fact that his father, comedian Harry Einstein, died while performing, Kearns said. (Bob Einstein died at aged 76 on January 2.)

Kearns and Abraham said their approach was to be respectful and sensitive to both the performer and their families.

Abraham said: 'It is really a celebration of lives even though it's a book about death.' 

Co-authors Jeff Abraham and Burt Kearns of the new book, The Show Won't Go On, told DailyMail.com that they had strict criteria about which onstage deaths they included. 'They had to be at least stricken onstage and then die on the way to the hospital,' Kearns said. They made some  exceptions, however, including the story of what happened to Curtis Mayfield, above. Mayfield, known for his funk music and his soundtrack for the 1972 film Superfly, was performing at an outdoor concert in Brooklyn in 1990. During a rainstorm, he was 'hit by all the stage gear and he was paralyzed and he managed to hang on for nine years,' Kearns said. Mayfield died at aged 48 on December 26, 1999

Below are some performers who were stricken or died onstage, according to a new book, The Show Won't Go On.

Washington Irving Bishop

Washington Irving Bishop

He was considered one of the best mentalists, those who supposedly have abilities such as clairvoyance, of the late 1800s. Born March 4, 1855, Washington Irving Bishop was once an assistant to 'mind-reader' John Randall Brown. He then went on to manage spiritualist Anna Eva Fay, 'The Indescribable Phenomenon.' However, by 1876, he exposed Fay and others' methods, and published a book, Second Sight Explained, in 1880.

While Bishop didn't claim supernatural abilities, he still performed. He was known for driving 'a horse-drawn carriage blindfolded,' wrote the authors of a new book called The Show Won't Go On, and finding hidden objects by holding the hand or wrist of a person while they thought of its location.

He was also known for his prolific drug and alcohol use during his performances, with the Kansas City Star reporting in 1889 that he had 'hypodermic syringes filled with morphine' and 'he frequently drank wine,' according to the book.

Death came for him when he was performing at an exclusive New York City club on May 12, 1889. Bishop had catalepsy, 'a condition that begins with a seizure and results in a trancelike state accompanied by body rigidity, a slowing of bodily functions like breathing, and decreased sensitivity to any kind of pain,' according to the book.

He had one seizure during the act, recovered, and then another from which he did not. Doctors, believing he was in a coma, used electricity – the one thing they should not do due to his condition – in an attempt to revive him. Bishop was pronounced dead and his brain was removed, much to the sorrow of his wife and mother, who upon hearing of his death rushed to the funeral home. They thought he would wake up as he did so many times before, according to the book.

'Amazing' Joseph Burrus

'Amazing' Joseph Burrus

He believed he was better than Houdini.

To that end, the 32-year-old Joseph Burrus sought to top the master and suffered fatally for it.

On Halloween night in 1990, 'Amazing Joe would be handcuffed, shackled, and locked in a homemade, see-through plastic-and-glass coffin; lowered into a seven-foot deep grave; and then covered in not only dirt but also a layer of freshly poured cement. Then he would escape from the coffin and make his way to the surface,' according to the book, The Show Won't Go On.

The year before, Burrus had successfully escaped from a casket buried under the dirt, the authors explained, and was upping the ante with the trick he was slated to perform at a local amusement park in California.

'I consider myself a master of illusion and escape artist,' Burrus said, according to a news report. 'I believe I'm the next Houdini and greater.'

Harry Houdini mesmerized audiences in the late 1800s and early 1900s with his daring escape acts that included being buried alive. He died on Halloween night in 1926 at aged 52.

That Halloween night in 1990, Burrus, who was wearing a white tuxedo, was shackled, put into a coffin, which was then lowered into the ground, according to the news report.

After his 'grave' was covered with dirt, they started pouring cement on top and while it should have been about a foot, it was much more than that, probably around three feet, Joseph Burrus, his son, told the authors. The cement effectively busted the coffin and Burrus 'suffocated because of all the weight of the dirt and cement,' he said. 

Chung Ling Soo

A poster for Chung Ling Soo's bullet catch act

A new book, The Show Won't Go On, documents the deaths of magicians and their assistants attempting a trick known as the bullet catch. Like its name suggests, a magician 'catches' a bullet that is fired at them with their mouth, hand or object, such as plate.

Sometimes the tragedy was an accident: a fake bullet switched for a real one. Other times, a gun was loaded on purpose with the genuine deadly article.

The bullet catch has probably been around since the late 1500s. Still, audiences were astonished by magician Chung Ling Soo's version, which he started to perform in 1906. Chung Ling Soo never spoke onstage until the day his take on the illusion went wrong.

With a nod to the Boxer Rebellion - a Chinese uprising started in late 1899 against foreigners that was ultimately squashed - Chung Ling Soo stood in front of six 'rebels' that fired at him and he would catch the bullets 'and drop them into the plate,' with the authors noting that 'he actually had the bullets in his palm all along.'

He performed this trick for 12 years so it was old hat on March 23, 1918 when he performed at a London theater. This time, however, when fired at, Chung Ling Soo, dropped and said, 'Oh my God, something's happened! Lower the curtain' in perfect English. Turned out that he really was William Ellsworth Robinson, 56, from Westchester County in New York and, according to the book, he had basically ripped off the act and persona of Ching Ling Foo.  

Moliere

Moliere

When the man born Jean-Baptiste Poquelin went onstage at the Theatre du Palais-Royal in Paris on February 17, 1673, he was already in the good graces of Louis XIV, the Sun King who built Versailles. Moliere had paid his theatrical dues in the provinces, written several plays and been to prison twice for his debts.

He was, in fact, performing the lead part of what would turn out to be his last play, Le Malade imaginaire, which can be translated as The Imaginary Invalid or The Hypochondriac.

'Already so ill that he was forced to perform while sitting in a red velvet chair, he was seized by a violent coughing fit and began hemorrhaging from the mouth,' according to a new book, The Show Won't Go On, which noted he had tuberculosis.

The comedic playwright tried to reassure his audience, reportedly saying, 'Don't be alarmed! I am not dead!' but he fell down again, and was 'carried him offstage in his red velvet chair,' the authors wrote.

He died not much long after at aged 51.

Moliere, who wrote Tartuffe and The Misanthrope, was not given his sacraments due to his scandalous profession of being actor, according to Britannica.com.

Harry Einstein

Harry Einstein, left, with Milton Berle, right

The Saturday night event on November 23, 1958 was to honor Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. The year before, the couple had finished the run of their incredibly popular show, I Love Lucy.

On the stage at the Friars Club was Dean Martin, George Burns, Sammy Davis Jr and others as well as comedian Harry Einstein. Once a mainstay of film and radio, even having his own program for a time, in the 1930s and 40s, Einstein's poor health had sidelined him by the late 1950s, according to a new book, The Show Won't Go On.

The roast was to be his 'comeback,' according to Art Linkletter, a TV host who was the masters of ceremonies. 'Parky,' as he was known, was on a roll that night and received a standing ovation.

But after getting back to his seat, Einstein 'suddenly he put his head over on Milton Berle's lap and shut his eyes and apparently slumped down,' Linkletter recalled, according to the book.

Einstein's wife, Thelma Leeds, tried to get a nitroglycerin pill into his mouth but to no avail, and he was taken backstage. Einstein died at aged 54.

According to the book, Desi Arnaz said: 'This is one of the moments Lucy and I have waited a lifetime for, but it's meaningless. They say the show must go on. But why must it? Let's close the show now by praying for this wonderful man backstage who made a world laugh.'

One of Einstein's son, Bob, who was on Curb Your Enthusiasm, told the authors that he took no comfort in the fact his father died doing what he loved. (Einstein is also the father of actor Albert Brooks.)

Tommy Cooper

Tommy Cooper

For decades, he was a fixture on British television. With his signature red fez, the six-foot-four Tommy Cooper was known for his jokes, his catchphrase 'Just like that!' and for his failed magic tricks. (A new book, The Show Won't Go On, points out this was done deliberately as Cooper was a member of The Magic Circle.)

On April 15, 1984, Cooper, 63, was performing his act on the variety TV show, Live from Her Majesty's, broadcast, of course, live from a London theater. By that point, 'decades of drink and cigars had most definitely caught up with him,' the authors wrote.

Cooper was onstage and keeping the audience in stitches when his assistant came out with an essential piece of clothing, his 'magic cloak,' for a routine of the same name. She wrapped the cloak around his shoulders, and a few moments later, 'he fell' and 'sort of slumped backwards,' Sandie Lawrence recalled in the documentary, The Untold Tommy Cooper.

After he fell, Cooper was 'grasping for breath,' according to the book, and while Lawrence knew something wasn't right, the audience kept laughing. Cooper was known for introducing new tricks without warning, and after a long pause the director realized something was wrong and cut to a commercial break, according to the book.

The crew managed to pull Cooper backstage, and got him medical attention. It is unclear when he died - onstage, backstage or on the way to the hospital, according to the book. In an instance of the show must go on, other acts and performers, including Donny Osmond, went on and the live broadcast continued.

Millions witnessed his death that night, with the authors noting that the video is posted online and has been viewed millions of time.

'Dimebag' Darrell Abbott

'Dimebag' Darrell Abbott

He was the talented guitarist of the heavy metal bands, Pantera and Damageplan, when a fan with mental health issues shot him during a show.

'Dimebag' Darrell Abbott was born in Texas on August 20, 1966, and together with his older brother, Vinnie Paul, formed Pantera in the early 1980s. Eventually, the band's lineup include bassist Rex Brown and lead singer Phil Anselmo. By 1994, their album, Far Beyond Driven, was number one on the Billboard 200. Abbott, who once had the nickname 'Diamond,' was dubbed 'Dimebag,' according to a new book, The Show Won't Go On.

Pantera sold millions, but the band broke up by the early 2000s. Abbott and Vinnie Paul formed a new band called Damageplan, which was on tour when it played a gig at a club in Columbus, Ohio on December 8, 2004.

The band had just started their set when a man fired three shots to Abbott's head, according to the book, and continued to fire injuring seven people. A police officer arrived soon after and fatally shot the man, who was later identified as Nathan Gale, a former US Marine.

The police investigation 'determined that the thirty-five-year-old Gale was a schizophrenic who believed members of Pantera were stealing his thoughts,' according to the book.

Abbott was 38. 

J I Rodale

J I Rodale

Before he founded Rodale Press in Pennsylvania in the 1930s, he was an accountant in New York City, where he was born and raised. Jerome Irving Rodale remains a controversial figure for his health claims and other views, but the publisher of books and the magazine Prevention had an effect on today's organic movement.

With the headline, 'Guru of the Organic Food Cult,' The New York Times Magazine had profiled Rodale a few days before he appeared on The Dick Cavett Show on June 8, 1971. Cavett and Rodale bantered about manure and organic farming.

'Now, I am so healthy that I uh, expect to live on and on,' Rodale, 72, told Cavett while discussing his age, according to a new book, The Show Won't Go On.

The segment was a success and Cavett moved on to his next guest, journalist Pete Hamill. While the two discussed a municipal worker strike and protest, Rodale snored, according to the book.

Both Cavett and Hamill were alarmed. The host asked if there was a doctor in the studio, and as four tried to administer CPR on Rodale, an ambulance was called. He died due to a heart attack.

Cavett said: 'He was the ghastly pale of a plumber's candle.'

Burt Kearns, one of the authors of The Show Won't Go On, said that Rodale's demise 'on the Dick Cavett show is one of the most legendary onstage deaths in modern pop culture history. The secret about it is that it never aired. Dick Cavett says that people come up to him couple times a year… and say I'll never forget seeing that guy die on the show.'

The episode has been under wraps and locked away, but Kearns and co-author Jeff Abraham were allowed to view it and transcribe what happened.

'To see somebody die on camera in a well-lit studio in front of an audience, it's pretty shocking and it's pretty horrific,' Kearns said. 'Cavett himself tells us that he can hardly bring himself to watch it.' 

Pedro Aunion Monroy

Pedro Aunion Monroy

While doing research for their book, The Show Won't Go On, one of the authors, Burt Kearns said that it depended whether or not a performance would continue. Many times, if it was a comedian, a member of a band or an actor in a play, the show would stop. But other times, in cases like circuses and music festivals, it would go on, he told DailyMail.com.

In 2017, Pedro Aunion Monroy, 42, a native of Madrid that lived in London, was to open for Green Day at Mad Cool, a three-day music festival in Spain's capital. Monroy, who had started his own performance company, In Fact Aerial Dance, had acted and done stunt work before the festival.

On July 7, he was 'doing a dance in an illuminated cube 100 feet above the stage and above the crowd of thousands and his harness snapped and he fell,' Kearns said, noting that the festivalgoers saw his death with their own eyes and on the jumbotron behind the stage.

The festival's producers decided that the day's headliner, Green Day, should go for fears that there would be a riot, he said.

While the band played, the audience was outraged as Monroy's death, which they had just witnessed, was not mentioned. Kearns said: 'It turned out Green Day had been kept in a holding area half a mile from the festival before they went on. They had no idea that this guy had died, and they had to do a lot of public relations in those following days just to assure their fan base that they weren't heartless.'

Karl Wallenda

Karl Wallenda, 73, above, on March 22, 1978 when he was attempting to walk a high wire between two hotels in San Juan, Puerto Rico. While attempting the feat, he fell and died

The Wallendas are 'a circus family whose history of high-flying acrobatics could be traced back to' the 18th Century, according to a new book, The Show Won't Go On. The book authors dubbed them the 'Kennedys of the circus world (in terms of often avoidable tragedy).'

Born in 1905 in Germany, Karl Wallenda started performing when he was six. By 17, he had formed a high-wire act that was touring the world. When John Ringling saw them, he hired them for Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, according to the book.

In 1928, the Great Wallendas performed at Madison Square Garden - without a net. The authors noted that 'they had no choice' because 'the net they worked with had been lost in transit.

'Their determination that the show would go on led to standing ovations at the Garden. From that point on, the Great Wallendas were the aerial daredevils who worked without a net.'

One of the first tragedies the family experienced was in early 1962. Karl had developed an act called the seven-person pyramid. Four performers on the lowest wire support with bars the two people above them on a second wire. Those two then prop up the performer sitting in a chair on the top wire.

When Jeff Abraham and Burt Kearns, co-authors of the new book, The Show Won't Go On, above, dove into the research and dug into the newspaper archives, they looked at performers who had died on the way to a show, in the dressing room, onstage, and after leaving a performance. But the authors realized there were too many – hundreds – to chronicle, and decided to narrow it down to performers who died onstage

The pyramid was executed safely without a net for decades, according to the book, but at that January performance in Detroit, Karl's nephew Dieter Schepp, lost his balance. The cascading effect caused the pyramid to collapse and the other performers to fall. Schepp and another performer, Richard Faughnan, and Schepp, died, and Karl's son Mario Wallenda was left paralyzed from the waist down, according to the book.

The family continued to perform.

On March 22, 1978, Karl was set 'to walk a high wire strung ten stories over a street between the two towers' in San Juan, Puerto Rico, the authors wrote.

Weather conditions were perhaps not the best for the daring feat, and when the wind picked up when Karl was more than halfway, he fell the 121 feet to the pavement. The 73-year-old was pronounced dead at the hospital.

Jeff Abraham, one of the authors of The Show Won't Go On, interviewed Nik Wallenda, Karl's grandson who is known for performing high-wire stunts including recently with his sister, Lijana, in Times Square. Lijana Wallenda was seriously injured, breaking bones in face, during a 2017 practice of what is now the eight-person pyramid.

Karl's philosophy was he would rather die on the wire than in bed, Abraham said.

The Wallendas are 'a circus family whose history of high-flying acrobatics could be traced back to' the 18th Century, according to a new book, The Show Won't Go On. Karl Wallenda developed an act called the seven-person pyramid. Four performers on the lowest wire support with bars the two people above them on a second wire. Those two then prop up the performer sitting in a chair on the top wire. The family, above, was performing the pyramid in 1963, a year after two members of the act died and one was paralyzed after one performer lost his balance and caused the pyramid's collapse