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bluenile.com. It's

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April 15, 1984,

0:35

and another remarkable event is about to

0:37

be uncovered by... Aria,

0:40

Rebecca and Ali. The

0:43

Retrospecters. Dying

0:46

on stage is often used as

0:48

a metaphor for a comedian failing

0:50

to connect with an audience. But

0:52

when legendary comic Tommy Cooper literally

0:54

died on stage at Her Majesty's

0:56

Theatre London, today in history in

0:59

1984, the audience lapped it

1:01

up, screaming with hilarity, thinking it was all

1:03

part of the show. But Cooper had actually

1:05

had a massive heart attack at the age

1:07

of 63 in the middle

1:10

of his act, and it was being

1:12

broadcast live on ITV. Yeah,

1:14

and it was a bit of a boy who

1:16

cried wolf scenario, because Cooper's act was all about

1:18

his supposedly botched magic trick. So initially the audience

1:20

assumed that it was planned. He was about to

1:22

embark on a sketch which called for a series

1:24

of props to appear from under a long cloak.

1:27

And a stage assistant had just tied the cloak around his neck

1:29

when he leaned back against the curtain

1:31

and then just slumped to the floor. The audience

1:33

initially assumed it was all planned and the kind

1:35

of heavy breaths that he was emitting as he

1:37

lay on the stage sounded almost like snoring. You

1:40

can see how people would be watching, is this supposed

1:42

to be like a narcoleptic magician bit? Like where's he

1:44

going with this? Once it became clear

1:46

that he was genuinely ill, which the production staff,

1:49

they were aware of his health history, will get

1:51

into that. So they noticed this well before the

1:53

audience. A hand emerged, you could see it, I

1:55

mean they've taken it down on lots of websites,

1:57

but I mean I've seen it. probably

2:00

seen the clip. Now a hand emerged and

2:02

sort of drew the curtains around him, the

2:04

TV broadcast went to an early ad break

2:06

and Jimmy Tabuk who was the host started

2:09

filling for time you know firing off gags

2:11

for the live audience in the theatre while

2:13

he could hear the paramedics behind him scrambling

2:15

to revive Cooper. Yeah in the best theatrical

2:18

tradition it was decided that the show must go

2:20

on and so they sent out Les Dennis and

2:22

Dustin G the other comedians who were booked as

2:24

well as the rest of the acts for the

2:26

night and they just continued

2:29

the performance in now the quite

2:31

limited space in front of the

2:33

stage as behind them efforts were

2:35

being made to try to revive

2:37

Cooper backstage and the situation

2:39

was hampered by the fact that there

2:41

was darkness backstage and it wasn't possible

2:44

to get the ambulance men in until

2:46

the second commercial break and only then were

2:48

they able to move Cooper's body to Westminster Hospital

2:50

where he was actually pronounced dead on arrival so

2:52

he really had actually probably died on stage. This

2:54

is it I mean I have watched the footage

2:57

now I'd put it off for a long time

2:59

I've never looked for this footage before it's never

3:01

been shown on television for reasons of taste and

3:03

decency is on YouTube if you look for it

3:06

I'd never watched it because Tommy Cooper was

3:08

my grandmother's favorite my dad had childhood memories

3:10

of watching Tommy Cooper with her he introduced

3:13

me to Tommy Cooper when I was a

3:15

kid and I never

3:17

bought this idea of like oh this is how he

3:19

would have liked to have gone you know on stage

3:22

with everyone laughing I thought that's a horrendous way to

3:24

die he lost control he was so in control all

3:26

the time of the joke every single movement was perfectly

3:28

timed he'd hate this I don't want to see someone

3:31

die on stage but I felt for

3:33

researching this that I should see the moment because millions of

3:35

people watched it on telly and that's the day we're commemorating

3:37

so I watched it and I should feel a bit better

3:39

about it now having seen it because it's

3:41

over really quickly isn't it he is

3:44

quite clearly dead about 10

3:46

seconds after he falls to the floor

3:48

and what's interesting is retrospectively this

3:51

business of he died on arrival at

3:53

Westminster Hospital hospital that was

3:55

clearly London weekend television who were making

3:58

the show not wanting to take professional

4:00

liability for what had happened. Which actually I don't

4:03

think anyone would have blamed them. You know, the

4:05

guy was in very poor health and had a

4:07

heart attack in the middle of a show. It

4:09

had nothing to do with ITV really. But they'd

4:11

known, as you hinted at earlier, that he was

4:13

in poor health. In fact, that night they

4:16

knew he couldn't make it up the stairs to the dressing

4:18

room, so they'd let him get changed in the wings, that

4:20

he was a big star turn, so they built him a

4:22

dressing room in the wings of the theatre. Yeah, and

4:24

that was one of the reasons that they knew

4:26

pretty much instantly that this wasn't part of the

4:28

act when he fell down, is that

4:30

his son was in the wings and he said

4:32

that his father had such serious butt problems, that

4:35

there's no way he would ever execute a pratfall

4:37

on stage as a way of getting loved. So

4:39

they knew something serious had actually happened. And it

4:41

seems like all the evidence points to Cooper dying

4:43

pretty much instantaneously. The people who

4:45

actually did suffer were the other people who

4:47

were performing. You can really see in their

4:49

accounts a bit later that there was a

4:51

lot of trauma around it. You know, Jimmy

4:53

Tarbuck especially, you can tell that he

4:55

felt guilty for being able to go out and

4:57

perform. He had known and admired Cooper for 20

4:59

years. He'd met him while he was still starting

5:01

out. But he was a trooper, you know, Tarbuck

5:03

was a performer. And you can imagine he just

5:05

went on autopilot, probably fueled by a lot of

5:07

adrenaline. And he was going out there and doing

5:10

his routine, making jokes, knowing what was going on

5:12

just behind the curtain. And the same

5:14

thing as well with Les Dennis. You know,

5:16

him and Dustin Gee were doing impressions of

5:18

Coronation Street characters while listening to the ambulance,

5:20

and there's something Cooper's just behind them. It

5:22

must have been totally surreal. And

5:24

actually, spookily enough, two years later, Dustin Gee

5:26

sent a massive heart attack on stage while

5:28

he and Les Dennis are playing the Ugly

5:31

Sisters in the Panto Cinderella and died two

5:33

days later in hospital. So, you know, Les

5:35

Dennis has spoken about this. He obviously also

5:37

carries a lot of trauma from it. And

5:39

the American musical star Howard Keel, you know,

5:41

Seven Brides and Brothers, Clementine Jane, he

5:43

was singing as Cooper was being casted away

5:46

into the ambulance. And you can see the

5:48

curtain twitching while he's singing. So everyone

5:50

was just going on with the show. Well,

5:53

it's that old fashioned variety thing, isn't it? The show

5:55

must go on. And it gets into that thing of, well, that's what

5:57

Tommy would have wanted. He'd want us to do the thing because we're

5:59

all performers. I think it's any sort of

6:01

true. But at the same time, the reason

6:03

it would be traumatic was not just because

6:06

he was this beloved entertainer. And by the

6:08

way, all of his routine was family friendly

6:10

and inclusive and silly. So everyone loved Tommy

6:12

Cooper. Or even if you didn't find him

6:14

funny, you could see his objectives were to

6:17

just simply make people laugh. And everyone found

6:19

him inoffensive. But it's that

6:21

he represented that wartime generation of British comics.

6:23

You know, he was like almost the friendly

6:25

face of those. There were some quite sardonic

6:27

ones. You think about Peter Sellers or Spike

6:29

Milligan. Tommy Cooper was like the

6:31

friendly face, along with Malcolm and Wise maybe, of

6:33

that generation of comics. It's not just anyone who's

6:36

just had a heart attack on stage. It's the

6:38

Dom, you know? Yeah, but

6:40

you can also understand why in the

6:42

very moment where he died on stage,

6:44

there was some uncertainty. Because as you

6:46

say, Rebecca, he often played on having

6:48

absolutely no material. You know, comedians so

6:51

often looked back at Tommy Cooper and

6:53

sort of assessed his material as being

6:55

nothing special intrinsically of itself. But what

6:57

made him funny, and one of Britain's

7:00

favourite comedians of the time, was just

7:02

that he was funny. You know, he

7:04

embodied this kind of great innocence and

7:06

these childlike qualities. And he

7:08

made sort of failed jokes, winning

7:11

in this really charming way. You know, many

7:13

comedians have commented on his ability to bring

7:15

the house down with just the thinnest of

7:17

material. The magician and TV presenter Paul Daniels

7:20

remembered Tommy Cooper giving an after dinner speech

7:22

at a club in London when he said,

7:24

This great big man just stood up. That's

7:26

all he did. He just stood up. And

7:28

the place he was in absolute hysterics at

7:31

a man standing up. He said, now I don't

7:33

care how much you study comedy. You can't define

7:35

that. That ability to fill a room with laughter

7:37

because you are just emanating humour.

7:40

His most famous routine in the theatre was not

7:42

even making it to the stage at all. Never

7:44

really standing up and having thin material. Like, his

7:47

signature sketch was that he couldn't make it to

7:49

the stage and you'd hear him doing the whole

7:51

thing from the dressing room. Yeah, so you could

7:53

totally understand why an audience would think, oh, this

7:55

is the bit where he does dying on stage.

7:58

And actually, you know, what

8:00

happened happened. He had actually surprisingly died

8:02

on stage. But it does feel like

8:04

the ultimate comedy, I don't know, out,

8:07

the ultimate punchline for the guy delivering

8:09

those jokes, even though, you know, he

8:11

probably would have preferred to go on,

8:13

let's face it. Only after the TV

8:16

broadcast, though, did the nation realize that

8:18

they had watched Tommy Cooper die. I

8:20

mean, obviously, this is an era long

8:22

before social media. So there's no way

8:25

of having that moment of national reckoning,

8:27

is there, when something like that weird

8:29

happens on live TV, there's no one to confirm

8:31

or deny whilst it's happening, you have to wait and

8:33

see. So the whole of Live at

8:35

Her Majesty is finished. And then when

8:37

the news at 10 came on, on the same channel,

8:40

ITV then sort of sombily announced the death of

8:42

Tommy Cooper, which the audience had just been watching.

8:44

But the rest of the show carried on as

8:47

if it hadn't. Yeah. And this year, 1984 actually

8:50

turned out to be a bit of

8:52

a, you know, bonanza year for beloved

8:54

comedians dying on stage. Famously, Eric Morcom

8:56

and Leonard Roster both also died in

8:58

1984. Heart attacks.

9:01

Eric Morcom was coming off stage. Yeah, Morcom had literally

9:03

just got off the stage, right? So it doesn't keep...

9:05

Yeah, and Leonard Roster was just about to go on

9:07

stage. If you want something more authentic,

9:10

if you want it, Olly, Sid James, in 1976. So

9:12

there, Heart Attack, he suffered

9:15

on stage during the opening night performance

9:17

of The Mating Season at the Sunderland

9:19

Empire Theatre. That is more depressing to

9:21

me, because I feel like Sid James

9:23

was a movie star, and he dies on

9:25

stage in like a regional tour of a

9:27

poorly received farce. Do you know what I

9:29

mean? Whereas Tommy Cooper actually is coming on

9:32

as beloved national figure and on

9:34

national television. If you're going to die on stage,

9:36

do it on ITV. Yeah, yeah. There's

9:38

been some also as well as the natural cause

9:41

of simply gruesome incidents and accidents, especially in the

9:43

world of magic and circus acts as well. In

9:45

1872, Thomas McCart, who performed as

9:47

Masachi the Lion Tamer, you can see where

9:49

this is going, was

9:52

fatally mauled by lions at a travelling show

9:54

in Boulton Market Hall. He had actually already

9:56

lost an arm to a lion in a

9:58

previous encounter. We can assume he was... was

10:00

not the greatest lawyer, Tamer. It's how he would have

10:02

wanted to go. Yeah. Screening

10:05

in Bolton Market Hall as he was most

10:08

death by lions. Yeah. Tomorrow.

10:13

People watch the show and were like, oh, who

10:15

am I related to? And that's why this was

10:17

so significant. The ads

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