Jelly’s Last Jam and Smokey Joe's Cafe Actor Adrian Bailey Dies at 67

Broadway actor Adrian Bailey has died. He was 67.

Making his Broadway debut in 1976’s Your Arms Too Short to Box with God, Bailey appeared in Broadway shows for more than three decades. His credits include Jelly's Last Jam (in the role of Ancestor), The Who’s Tommy, Smokey Joe’s Cafe, The Wild Party (on which he also served as dance captain), Dreamgirls, La Cage Aux Folles, Hot Feet and The Little Mermaid.

Bailey made headlines in 2008 after falling through a trapdoor minutes before a performance of The Little Mermaid, seriously injuring his wrists. It would be his last Broadway show.

“The wonderful Adrian Bailey has gone home,” Lucie Arnaz Luckinbill, who co-starred with Bailey in My One and Only, wrote in a tribute on Instagram. “Adrian was our gentle giant. The talent and compassion he had were beyond description.” After his Little Mermaid fall, Luckinbill continued, Bailey “struggled for his life for years relearning everything. He survived decades longer than they predicted because he was Adrian Bailey.”

In his own social media tribute, Patrick L. Riley wrote, "Adrian Bailey is now an ancestor."