Nick Cordero’s son Elvis just spoke his first words ― and the moment deserves an encore.
The 1-year-old child of the Hamilton, Ont.-born Broadway star, who died this month from coronavirus at age 41, says “Right there” in a clip of him recognizing a picture of his pop on a photo lamp.
“Elvis said his first words today!!” Cordero’s wife, Amanda Kloots, wrote of the footage she posted to Instagram Sunday. “Listen closely! He pointed at Nick in our new picture light and said ‘right there.’ He hasn’t seen Nick since March 30th. The fact that he still knows who his Dada is, point to him and give him a kiss to me is amazing.”
The Tony-nominated actor died July 5 after a months-long struggle with COVID-19. While in ICU at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles, Cordero had his right leg amputated because of blood clots, endured septic shock, underwent kidney dialysis and had a temporary pacemaker inserted, among setbacks.
Before he contracted the virus, Cordero was in good shape and had no underlying health conditions, Kloots has said.
“Where’s Dada?” Kloots asks Elvis in the clip. The boy then kisses his father’s photo and laughs. “Right there,” he says.
He then grabs the lamp. Show-stopping runs in the family.
During Cordero’s tragic ordeal, his wife documented the family’s journey on social media. She talked about how she and Elvis would FaceTime Cordero from his hospital bed. She would send her husband videos of their son, and even recorded the sound of Elvis crying, “so that when he wakes up, he can watch them and feel like he’s been with Elvis and I,” she said.
Cordero left Hamilton, which he’s called “the Pittsburgh of Canada,” to study acting at Ryerson University’s School of Performance in Toronto. He appeared in plays in Toronto theatre before making the move to New York City. He met Kloots when they were both working on a production of “Bullets of Broadway” in 2014.
Kloots, a former Radio City Rockette, recently revealed she and Elvis are moving into the home she and her late husband bought before he got sick.
“I’m not expecting this to be easy, in fact I think it will be very hard, but I’m going into it knowing I need to be strong,” she wrote. “I have to find my new normal, at least whatever that is for Elvis and I right now. I know Nick will be with us.”