Abdominal aortic aneurysm
Actress Lucille Ball died April 26, 1989 from an abdominal aortic aneurysm. At the time of her death, she was in Cedars-Sinai Medical Center recovering from emergency surgery performed just six days earlier because of a dissecting aortic aneurysm near her heart. Ball was at increased risk, as she had been a heavy smoker for decades.
Wildcat (musical)
Ball quickly realized audiences had come expecting to see her Lucy Ricardo persona and began mugging and ad-libbing to bring her characterization closer to that of the zany housewife she had portrayed in "I Love Lucy". It was clearly Ball who was drawing the crowds, and when she fell ill and demands for refunds ran high, the producers announced plans to close the show for a week in late March 1961 to allow her to recover her strength. The closure came sooner than planned when Ball, suffering from a virus and chronic fatigue, departed for Florida on February 8. She returned two weeks later, but on April 22 she collapsed on stage. It was decided the show would close for nine weeks at the end of May and reopen once its star had recovered fully, but May 24 proved to be her final performance, as the musicians' union insisted on members of the orchestra being paid during the shutdowns. This ultimately made it financially infeasible for the production to remain active, forcing it to close permanently on June 3, 1961.