The broadway and TV actor Nick Cordero who spent months in intensive care being treated for the coronavirus and lost his leg from complications, died Sunday, his wife said.
“My darling husband passed away this morning. He was surrounded in love by his family, singing and praying as he gently left this earth,” his wife Amanda Kloots wrote on Instagram.
Broadway Star Nick Cordero Dies After The Battle Against Coronavirus
Nick Cordero faced severe complications from the virus, despite having no pre-existing health conditions. He spent weeks on a ventilator, suffered septic shock, mini-strokes, and had to have a leg amputated. His wife Amanda Kloots also said that on Thursday that Cordero would likely need a double lung transplant. She had previously said the illness had damaged his lungs so severely they looked like he’d been smoking for 50 years.
In late March he was admitted to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles for what was initially thought to be pneumonia. A first coronavirus test came up negative, though a subsequent test was positive for COVID-19. According to his wife, he had lost 65 pounds (29 kilograms) from muscle atrophy and was still unable to move or talk by mid-June.
Cordero had shown signs of improvement, but his numerous COVID-19 complications proved too much to overcome. And from the time he was admitted to the hospital until June 19, his wife Kloots was not able to visit her husband because of coronavirus restrictions. Instead, she checked in on him via FaceTime set up by his nurses.
His wife Amanda Kloots shared updates to her followers via social media on the ups and downs of her husband’s recovery regularly. And also she mentioned that he had battled the disease for 95 days. After 3 weeks in intensive care, Cordero’s doctors were forced to amputate his right leg because his blood flow had been impeded by a clot, another dangerous coronavirus complication.
In Broadway’s adaptation of the 1994 Woody Allen film “Bullets Over Broadway.” Cordero played a mob soldier with a flair for the dramatic. He originated the menacing role of husband Earl opposite his estranged wife, played by Jessie Mueller, in “Waitress” on Broadway, as well as the role of Sonny in Chazz Palminteri’s “A Bronx Tale.” Also, Cordero appeared in several episodes of “Blue Bloods” and “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” as well as “Lilyhammer,” and he had a role in the film “Going in Style.
Amanda Kloots ended her Instagram farewell to Nick Cordero talking about “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 (let) 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.” which she and friends performed for him one final time on Sunday.
The virus has affected other Broadway veterans, including actors Danny Burstein, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Gavin Creel, Aaron Tveit and Laura Bell Boundy, as well as the compose David Bryan. It is also claimed that the life of Tony-winning playwright Terrence McNally.