Gay New York Couple of 60+ Years Who Married Last Year Die Just Two Weeks Apart
“Couples in their golden years who have been together for a long time often can’t survive the death of their spouse, and often dies within days, weeks, or months of each other. What’s unusual about this case is that the couple was gay, both were noted and acclaimed entertainers, and they were also married.
Shaun O’Brien (right), a dancer of four decades with the New York City Ballet, died at the age of 86 on February 23. His husband (left) Cris Alexander, a Broadway actor and photographer, died on March 7, just two weeks later.
The NYT noted the cause of death most accurately:
When same-sex marriage became legal in New York last year, he married Shaun O’Brien, the celebrated character dancer with the New York City Ballet. They had been together for more than 60 years and died less than two weeks apart — Mr. Alexander on March 7 in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., at age 92; Mr. O’Brien on Feb. 23 at 86. They shared a Victorian house in Saratoga Springs.
“If there is a cause of death, it’s a broken heart,” his friend Jane Klain said in confirming Mr. Alexander’s death. “It’s as simple as that.”
Hopefully we’ll all get to lead such fulfilled and long lives. And those long-term couples around the country will have the chance to dignify their relationship in law like O’Brien and Alexander did.”
![Actress Lillyn Brown (1885–1969)], ca. 1920
“A veteran of vaudeville and musical theater, Lillyn Brown’s show business career began in 1894 when she left her home in Georgia with a traveling minstrel show. Born Lillian Thomas to an African American mother and Iroquois father, Brown initially performed as the “Indian Princess” but soon acquired the role of male impersonator (or “interlocutor”) billed as “Elbrown” or “E. L. Brown,” developing an act in which she wore top hat and tails, sang several songs as a man, then revealed her long hair and continued singing as a woman. She made her only known gramophone recordings in 1921, backed by her group, the Jazzbo Syncopators. Brown toured Europe, appeared on Broadway, and performed at the major clubs in Harlem and on the Keith Circuit until her retirement in 1934. She resumed her stage career in 1949, with a dramatic role in Regina. In the 1950s, she operated an acting and singing school in Manhattan, taught for many years at the Jarahal School of Music in Harlem (Sugar Ray Robinson was one of her pupils), and was active in the Negro Actors Guild.
Vintage African American photography courtesy of Black History Album, The Way We Were.
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