Adrian Bailey, the singer, actor and dancer whose long career in Broadway musicals ended when he fell through a trap door and suffered serious injuries before a production of The Little Mermaid, has died. He was 67.
Bailey died Sunday at a rehabilitation facility in New York on the day before his birthday, his brother Karl Bailey told The Hollywood Reporter. He had recently fallen in his New York apartment.
A native of Detroit, Bailey made his Broadway debut in 1976 in Your Arms Too Short to Box With God.
He then appeared in Sophisticated Ladies, My One and Only, Legs Diamond and Prince of Central Park in the 1980s; in Black and Blue, Jelly’s Last Jam, The Who’s Tommy, Kiss of the Spider Woman and Smokey Joe’s Café in the 1990s; and in The Wild Party, La Cage aux Folles and Hot Feet in the 2000s.
Bailey was an understudy in the role of King Triton and a member of the Little Mermaid ensemble on May 10, 2008, when he walked through a open trap door on a suspended boat and landed on the stage 36 feet below just before the start of a matinee performance at the Lunt-Fontanne Theater.
Bailey quickly underwent surgery on his wrists. Four months later, he sued Disney, which produced the show, and the companies that built the sets and motion-control systems. In his suit, he said he also suffered numerous fractures of his back, hip, pelvis, coccyx, sternum, ribs and foot and herniated vertebral discs that required at least five surgeries.
“My life has been changed forever,” Bailey said at the time. “It will never be the same. My immediate goal is to somehow be able to walk up to my own apartment and care for myself. I try to stay positive.”
Bailey’s brother said he was eventually able to walk again but was unable to travel for longer than two hours at a time, which caused him to miss their mother’s funeral. “I know he wanted to go to that,” he said.
Growing up, Bailey took dance and voice lessons while attending Osborn High School and the University of Detroit Mercy. “Right out of high school, he was on his way to New York,” his brother said. “He always knew what he wanted.”
Bailey also appeared in The Wiz (1978) and The Kings of Brooklyn (2004) and in the 1991 HBO telefilm The Josephine Baker Story, starring Lynn Whitfield.
In addition to Karl, survivors include two other brothers, Louis and Frank, and a sister, Angela.
Bailey “struggled for his life for years relearning EVERYTHING,” Lucie Arnaz Luckinbill, who appeared with him in My One and Only, wrote on Instagram. “He survived decades longer than they predicted because he was Adrian Bailey.”
