Heart Attacks and Death
In 1967, James was intending to play Sergeant Nocker in Follow That Camel, but suffered a massive heart attack and was replaced by the American comic actor Phil Silvers. In the same year in Carry On Doctor James was shown mainly lying in a hospital bed, owing to his real-life health scare.
Meanwhile his success in TV situation comedies continued, now heading the cast, notably in Citizen James, Taxi!, George and the Dragon, Two in Clover, and Bless This House. On 26 April 1976, while on a revival tour of The Mating Season, a 1969 farce by the Irish playwright Sam Cree, James suffered a heart attack on stage at the Sunderland Empire Theatre. The technical manager (Melvyn James) called for the curtain to close and requested a doctor, whilst the audience (unaware of what was happening) laughed, believing the events to be part of the show. He was taken to hospital by ambulance, but died about an hour later. James, aged 62, was cremated and his ashes scattered at Golders Green Crematorium.
Later it was rumoured that James' ghost haunted the dressing room he occupied on the night of his death. After one experience during an engagement there, comedian Les Dawson refused to play the venue again. He never revealed why and would not talk on the subject.
Read more about this topic: Sid James
Famous quotes containing the words heart, attacks and/or death:
“Let no one’s heart fail because of him; your servant will go and fight with this Philistine.”
—Bible: Hebrew, 1 Samuel 17:32.
David, of Goliath.
“Stupidity is something unshakable; nothing attacks it without breaking itself against it; it is of the nature of granite, hard and resistant.”
—Gustave Flaubert (1821–1880)
“To die, to sleep—
No more, and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to—’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep.
To sleep, perchance to dream. Ay, there’s the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil
Must give us pause.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)