Late Career and Death
Williams' stage career lagged after his final Follies appearance in 1919. His name was enough to open a show, but they had shorter, less profitable runs. In December 1921, Under the Bamboo Tree opened, to middling results. Williams still got good reviews, but the show did not. Williams developed pneumonia, but did not want to miss performances, knowing that he was the only thing keeping an otherwise moribund musical alive at the box office.
On February 27, 1922 Williams collapsed during a performance in Detroit, Michigan, which the audience initially thought was a comic bit. Helped to his dressing room, Williams quipped, "That's a nice way to die. They was laughing when I made my last exit." He returned to New York, but his health worsened. He died on March 4, at the age of forty-seven. Few had suspected that he was sick, and news of his death came as a public shock. More than 5,000 fans filed past his casket, and thousands more were turned away. Williams was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery, Bronx, New York.
Read more about this topic: Bert Williams
Famous quotes containing the words late, career and/or death:
“Sir Andrew Aguecheek. I know, to be up late is to be up late.
Sir Toby Belch. A false conclusion. I hate it as an unfilled can. To be up after midnight and to go to bed then, is early; so that to go to bed after midnight is to go to bed betimes.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“I’ve been in the twilight of my career longer than most people have had their career.”
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“Will you see the players well bestowed? Do you hear, let them
be well used, for they are the abstracts and brief chronicles of the time. After your death you were better have a bad epitaph than their ill report while you live.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)