Noted Tenor Taken Off Life Support

AP ^ | Jul 16, 2007 | The Associated Press

[Westlander]

Celebrated tenor Jerry Hadley was taken off life support Monday, nearly a week after an apparent suicide attempt left him with a severe brain injury.

The 55-year-old singer shot himself with an air rifle last Tuesday at his Clinton Corners home, several miles outside Poughkeepsie, according to state police.

State troopers found him unconscious on his bedroom floor and he was taken to St. Francis Hospital in Poughkeepsie.

Hadley had been on life support since his arrival at the hospital. Family friend and spokeswoman Celia Novo said he was taken off the systems Monday.

[Westlander]

My .20 Sheridan can be pumped up to have a little oopmah, but a brain shot ? Please explain Freeper Engineers.

[Huck]

Noted tenor. Get it?

[badpacifist]

The 55-year-old singer shot himself with an air rifle

WTF??

[Tax-chick]

I’m sorry about this. He seems to have been a Broadway musical tenor, rather than an opera tenor.

[Pontiac]

Even relatively inexpensive .177 cal. Air rifles are rated at 1000 fps.

This is more than enough to penetrate the skull of the average tenor.

But to do serious damage it would need to be a well placed shot or he would have to be unattended for an extended period of time to allow intracranial bleeding to do further damage.

[I still care]

Check this out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBlBVkk0lmw&mode=related&search=

[Spunky]

Jerry Hadley picture and singing

[cammie]

No, he was mostly an operatic tenor, but he occassionally crossed over to the Broadway world (ie. Showboat recording).

RIP.

[alarm rider]

Blanks can kill is they are discharged close enough to certain areas. Never underestimate any firearm, no matter how wimpy or weak you think it might be.

[Tax-chick]

Thanks for the information. Quite a loss as an artist; I’m sorry things went badly for him.

[blue-duncan]

Jerry and his wife were the music directors for a church here while he was doing graduate work at Hartt School of Music. She was his accompanist when he came back a couple of times after doing well professionally to put on concerts for different charities here. He was always approachable and generous with his time and talent. This is so sad.

[Dr. Thorne]

Not so. I sang with Jerry in Offenbach's Tales of Hoffmann several years ago. His voice has been in pretty bad shape for quite a while and he has moved to easier, lighter concert repertoire, but ten years ago he had a terrific lyric tenor voice. However, he was something of hyperactive child and almost killed me in a staged sword fight when he forgot the fight choreography and I was suddenly truly defending myself. However, since he was singing the title role in Hoffmann, and making the big bucks, he generously took the entire cast out to lunch at a very nice restaurant.

Jerry is a talented guy who never really grew up. This is a very sad story, but not surprising.

[Tax-chick]

Thank you. I was going by the performances mentioned in the linked article. The more I learn about the gentleman, the more unhappy I feel about his death.