Nick Cordero ‑ the Tony award-nominated Broadway actor who starred in hit musicals including Waitress, A Bronx Tale and Bullets Over Broadway ‑ has died in Los Angeles from severe medical complications after contracting coronavirus. He was 41.
Cordero died on July 5, 2020, at Cedars-Sinai hospital after spending more than 90 days in the hospital, The Guardian quoted his wife Amanda Kloots as saying.
“God has another angel in heaven now,” she posted on Instagram. “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. He loved his family and loved being a father and husband.”
Cordero reportedly entered the emergency room on 30 March and had a succession of health setbacks including mini-strokes, blood clots, sepsis infections, a tracheostomy and a temporary pacemaker implant. He had been on a ventilator and unconscious and had his right leg amputated. A double lung transplant was being explored.
Kloots sent him daily videos of her and their one-year-old son, Elvis, and urged friends and fans to join a daily sing-a-long. She has said it was difficult to tell whether Cordero understood what was happening, but when he was alert he could respond by looking up and down. A GoFundMe page to pay for medical expenses has raised over $600,000.
Cordero played Earl in the Broadway hit Waitress, and the role of Sonny in Chazz Palminteri’s A Bronx Tale. He met Kloots while starring in Bullets Over Broadway, a 2014 stage adaptation of Woody Allen’s 1994 film, in which she also performed. Cordero was nominated for a Tony for his role as Cheech. The two married in 2017.
Cordero also appeared in several episodes of Blue Bloods and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and had a role in the 2017 film Going in Style.
He was last onstage in a Kennedy Center presentation of Little Shop of Horrors.