Adrian Bailey, the singer, actor and dancer whose long career in musicals ended when he fell through a trap door and suffered serious injuries before a production of , 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 .
He had recently fallen in his New York apartment. A native of Detroit, Bailey made his Broadway debut in 1976 in . He then appeared in , , and in the 1980s; in , , , and in the 1990s; and in , and in the 2000s.
Bailey was an understudy in the role of King Triton and a member of the 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 caus.
