Hey, if you're the kind of person who comes to this blog — which I assume you are or you wouldn't be reading this — here's a book that might interest you. My buddy Jeff Abraham has teamed up with his buddy Burt Kearns and written The Show Won't Go On, a history of performers who died in front of an audience. You probably know about the great Dick Shawn (pictured above) but you'll be surprised by how many other times someone has been on a stage and expired, either because their performance went horribly wrong or some internal organ did.
Grim? Morbid? Certainly…but also fascinating. And Jeff and Burt are good enough storytellers and researchers to make the stories interesting and enlightening. There are dozens of them, give or take a Wallenda or two.
When I got my review copy, I opened it just to take a quick peek and wound up reading half the book then, the other half the next day…and the tales are not all sad. For some of these performers, sad would have been to expire all alone in some nursing home, having not heard applause for the previous decade or two. A lot of performers love the idea of working 'til the moment they drop and here we have the story of many who managed to do just that.
If you need a sampling, Jeff and Burt are guests this week on Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast! If you're ready to purchase, here's an Amazon link. Enjoy.