They didn't break a leg out there -- they died.

Whenever someone dies doing something they love — say, for example, knitting or wrestling grizzly bears — other people feel compelled to shake their heads somberly and say: “Well, he would’ve wanted to go that way.”

I know we have an inherent need to find a bright side to premature deaths. But when someone says something like that, I want to say, “Actually, I don’t think he wanted to go that way. In fact, I’m pretty sure he would've prefered to die in a bed — like 50 years from now.”

But of course, I don’t usually say that. In fact, I probably just agree he would’ve wanted to go that way because, you know, that’s just what you do in those situations.

Still, the irony of dying while doing something you really love kind of fascinates me. (Not that I’m weird but -- okay, maybe a little.) Periodically, I’ll do some background research* for a story on a local band, and I’ll read about some musician who died while performing.

It seems sort of bizarre, but it has actually happened several times.

In some cases, famous performers have keeled over and died right onstage. In other cases, they suffered major illnesses that eventually led to their demise.

For those of you wasting time on the Internet, here are a few examples:

-- Tiny Tim. The odd ukulele player was singing his signature song — “Tiptoe Through the Tulips” — at a benefit for the Women’s Club of Minneapolis in 1996 when he suffered a heart attack. When asked if he was OK, he cried out, “No, I’m not!” At 64, those were his final words.

-- Jackie Wilson. The man who brought us “Reete Petit” and “(Your Love is Lifting Me) Higher and Higher” was performing at a Dick Clark show in Cherry Hill, N.J., on Sept. 25, 1975, when he suffered a massive heart attack while singing one of his signature hits, “Lonely Teardrops.” During the attack, he fell and hit his head, knocking him into a coma. He lay in a vegetative state for eight years (Elvis Presley and the Spinners reportedly paid his hospital bills.) before he died at the age of 49.

-- Tammi Terrell. Known for her duets with Marvin Gaye, Terrell actually collapsed in Gaye’s arms just after singing “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”at a college in central Virginia. Diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor in October of 1967, her health continued to deteriorate after that show. In March of 1970, she died at age 24.

-- Spade Cooley. Cooley was a swing performer who also appeared in numerous Westerns, often as a stand-in for Roy Rogers. He eventually suspected Rogers was having an affair with his wife, whom he murdered in a jealous rage as the couple’s teenage daughter watched in horror. While serving a prison term for murder, he was given a temporary release in 1961 to play a benefit concert for the Deputy Sheriffs’ Association of Alameda County in Oakland. Minutes after the show, he suffered a fatal heart attack backstage.

-- Mark Sandman. The man who fronted and founded the alternative band Morphine was performing at a festival near Rome in July 1999 when he collapsed onstage of a heart attack. Sandman, who had no known health problems, was pronounced dead in an ambulance, en route to a hospital.

-- Curtis Mayfield. One of the fathers of funk — the architect of Chicago soul — was performing in Brooklyn in 1990 when a heavy gust of wind knocked over a lighting rig, which landed on him. Mayfield, who was paralyzed from the neck down, suffered health problems the rest of his life, and it is believed that his injury contributed to his death in 1999. The founder of The Impressions was 57.


* Actual work — not just “wasting time on the Internet,” as some have suggested.

— Pat P.