Death
In early 1979 Champion received from his doctors at the Scripps Institute a diagnosis of Waldenström macroglobulinemia, a rare form of blood cancer. He began treatment at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Los Angeles and was advised not to take on work. In August, 1980, he died in New York City at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. When Champion died at 1:00 on August 25, 1980, it was six hours before the opening-night curtain of “42nd Street,” the Broadway musical he directed. It would be his greatest success, running nine years. Producer David Merrick kept the news secret, including from the cast. During the enthusiastic curtain calls, he entered the stage and melodramatically made the shocking announcement amidst the applause. “No, no. This is tragic. You don’t understand. Gower Champion died this morning.”
Read more about this topic: Gower Champion
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“The death clock is ticking slowly in our breast, and each drop of blood measures its time, and our life is a lingering fever.”
—Georg Büchner (1813–1837)
“Oh, you cold-blooded English. You’ll be the death of me.”
—Norman Reilly Raine (1895–1971)
“What we think of as our sensitivity is only the higher evolution of terror in a poor dumb beast. We suffer for nothing. Our own death wish is our only real tragedy.”
—Mario Puzo (b. 1920)