‘The Little Mermaid’ Actor Adrian Bailey Dead at 67

Veteran Broadway performer Adrian Bailey, who understudied the role of King Triton in the 2008 production of The Little Mermaid, has died. Bailey passed away at a rehabilitation facility in New York on Sunday, Sept. 22, just a day before his 68th birthday, his brother Karl Bailey confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter. Although a cause of death was not disclosed, his brother said the actor had recently fallen in his New York apartment.

Born in Detroit in 1957, Bailey made his Broadway debut in 1976 in the Alex Bradford musical Your Arms Too Short to Box With God. He went on to enjoy a Broadway career that spanned decades and included performances in more than 15 productions, including Sophisticated Ladies, My One and Only, Legs Diamond, Jelly’s Last Jam, The Who’s Tommy, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Smokey Joe’s Cafe, and La Cage aux Folles.

However, Bailey’s Broadway career came to a tragic end on May 10, 2008. While preparing for a matinee performance of Disney’s The Little Mermaid, the actor fell through a trapdoor and landed 36 feet below on the stage of the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre. Although he survived the fall, he underwent surgery on his wrists and suffered fractures to his back, hip, pelvis, coccyx, sternum, ribs, and foot, according lawsuit he filed against Disney and the companies that built the sets and motion-control systems. He also suffered herniated vertebral discs that required at least five surgeries.

Bailey survived doctors’ initial expectations and eventually began to re-renter public life, attending a variety of opening night celebrations in support of the theatre community, according to Playbill, but he was unable to return to the stage. Baily said life had been “changed forever,” by the accident, with Lucie Arnaz Luckinbill, who co-starred with him in My One and Only, writing in a social media tribute that Bailey “struggled for his life for years relearning EVERYTHING” and “survived decades longer than they predicted because he was Adrian Bailey.”

“This man was a giant in more ways than height,” she added. “When I co-starred with Tommy Tune for 7 months in ‘My One and Only’ Adrian was our gentle giant. The talent and compassion he had were beyond description… You were a kind and beautiful person, Adrian. We all adored you. You leave a big gap in our lives.”

Playwright and actor Rodney Hicks also paid tribute to Bailey, writing on Instagram, “May you rest in eternal peace. An honor to call you friend and to have been inspired by your brilliance on Broadway and your strength in life.”

Bailey is survived by his brothers Karl, Louis and Frank, and his sister Angela.