Tony Award-nominated actor Nick Cordero, 41, has died after a months-long battle with complications from COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.
His wife Amanda Kloots posted on Instagram Sunday night.
“My darling husband passed away this morning,” she wrote. “He was surrounded in love by his family, singing and praying as he gently left this earth.”
Kloots wrote of her pain in sharing the news.
“I am in disbelief and hurting everywhere,” she wrote. “My heart is broken as I cannot imagine our lives without him.”
“Nick was such a bright light,” Kloots wrote. She described him as “everyone’s friend,” a person who “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. Elvis and I will miss him in everything we do, everyday,” she wrote, referring to their only child.
Kloots also paid tribute to Cordero’s doctor: “To Nick’s extraordinary doctor, Dr. David Ng, you were my positive doctor! There are not many doctors like you. Kind, smart, compassionate, assertive and always eager to listen to my crazy ideas or call yet another doctor for me for a second opinion. You’re a diamond in the rough.”
She then thanked everyone for “the outpour of love, support and help we’ve received these last 95 days.”
The Hamilton-born Broadway star’s hospitalization began at the end of March. He was admitted to the ICU at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, Calif.
In early June, Kloots, 38, wrote on Instagram about how she had been told a “couple times that he won’t make it.”
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“Every day he’s still with us is a miracle,” her post said at the time.
Cordero had experienced complications during his treatment for COVID-19, including lung infections and blood clotting in his right leg. Kloots announced in mid-May that her husband had woken up from a medically induced coma, after having his right leg amputated just weeks earlier.
On July 2, she said Cordero might need a double lung transplant.
“In order to live the kind of life that I know my husband would want to live, that is a long road away and a lot of things would have to line up for Nick to be a candidate for that,” Kloots told show host Gayle King in a pre-taped interview on CBS This Morning.
Kloots has kept her social media updated with news of Cordero’s hospitalization and various complications over the past three months. People following her family’s saga would play her husband’s song Live Your Life.
“You have no idea how much you lifted my spirits at 3pm everyday as the world sang Nick’s song, Live Your Life,” she wrote on Sunday night.
His family sang the song to him on Sunday morning, she said.
“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,” Kloots wrote. “I will love you forever and always my sweet man.”
People posted about their grief over Cordero’s death on Twitter, shortly after the news broke Sunday night.
“RIP Nick Cordero! My condolences to you Amanda who fought and loved so hard….so sorry for his little one. My heart is with you,” tweeted Oscar-winning actor Viola Davis.
“I didn’t know Nick Cordero personally but I’d been following his journey since he was hospitalized with covid 95 days ago. He fought so hard and today he lost his battle. What a tragic loss for his wife and baby,” wrote comedian Fortune Feimster.
Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda called his death “devastating.”
“What a loss, what a light. Whole heart with Amanda and his family tonight.”
Jane Rosenthal, co-founder of the Tribeca Film Festival, wrote of the sadness of losing “our friend and Bronx Tale family member.”
“He fought this virus with all his might. Our love and prayers to Nick’s wife Amanda and his son Elvis.”
Actor Zach Braff wrote Cordero died a little before noon on Sunday.
“Nick Cordero passed at 11:40am today with his mother and wife by his side. I can honestly tell you I have never met a kinder human being,” he tweeted.
“I am so grateful for the time we had.”
https://twitter.com/zachbraff/status/1279961237342674944
Cordero’s career involved playing a mob soldier on Broadway in 2014 in Woody Allen’s 1994 film adaptation of Bullets Over Broadway.
He received a Tony nomination for best-featured actor in a musical for that role. He moved to Los Angeles to star in Rock of Ages. He has appeared in several episodes of Blue Bloods and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.
According to The Associated Press, the coronavirus has impacted other veterans of Broadway as well, including actors Danny Burstein, Tony Shalhoub, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Gavin Creel, Aaron Tveit, Laura Bell Bundy and composer David Bryan.
It has also claimed the life of Tony-winning playwright Terrence McNally.
Globally, the virus has resulted in nearly 11.5 million cases and more than half a million deaths, according to data tracked by Johns Hopkins University.
— With files by Global News reporters Don Mitchell, Adam Wallis, The Associated Press
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