NEW YORK—Tony Award-nominated actor Nick Cordero, who specialized in playing tough guys on Broadway in such shows as “Waitress,” “A Bronx Tale” and “Bullets Over Broadway,” has died in Los Angeles after suffering severe medical complications after contracting the coronavirus. He was 41.
Viola Davis was among those in mourning, writing to his widow and child that “my heart is with you all.” Fellow Broadway actress and president of Actors’ Equity Association Kate Shindle wrote on Twitter that she was “heartbroken for his family and deeply saddened by the loss of this talented and widely loved actor.”
“I tell him, I say, ‘You’re gonna walk out of this hospital, honey. I believe it. I know you can,’” she told “CBS This Morning” this summer. ”‘We’re gonna dance again. You’re gonna hold your son again.’ My line is, ‘Don’t get lost. Get focused.’”
Kloots had said that it was difficult to tell whether Cordero understood happened to him, but said he could respond to commands by looking up and down when he was alert.
Her husband played a mob soldier with a flare for the dramatic in Broadway’s Woody Allen 1994 film adaptation of “Bullets Over Broadway,” for which he received a Tony nomination for best-featured actor in a musical. He and his family moved to Los Angeles to star in “Rock of Ages.”
On the small screen, Cordero appeared in several episodes of “Blue Bloods” and “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” and he had a role in the film “Going in Style.”
Actor and guitarist for Bruce Springsteen Stevie Van Zandt offered Cordero his first TV acting gig in the final episode of “Lilyhammer.” After he was hospitalized, Van Zandt teamed up with Constantine Maroulis and Vincent Pastore to make a video performing “Live Your Life.”
Cordero was last onstage in a Kennedy Center presentation of “Littler Shop of Horrors.” His off-Broadway credits include “The Toxic Avenger” and “Brooklynite.”
