Shannon passed away yesterday at at Cohen Children’s Medical Center on New York’s Long Island, according to Katharina Harf, co-founder of DKMS, the bone marrow donor group who fought to save her.

Having won the ‘Lion King’ role in February despite huge competition, Shannon was forced to quit in April when a blood test revealed ‘Acute Myeloid Leukemia,’ an aggressive cancer that usually affects adults. The prognosis was dark, but her love for her role as Nala was unbowed;

“It’s an indescribable feeling, being on stage,” she told reporters at the time. “I portray this character with fears, but who is so tough. I feel like that’s who I am.”

A bone marrow transplant was not available for Shannon as she had mixed parentage – Her mother is black and her father’s Hispanic. The prospects for patients with mixed ancestry are bleak because of far fewer donors, so Shannon received an umbilical-cord blood transplant in August instead. But the leukemia continued to grow.

“Some people think the test for compatibility is scary,” she later wrote on her web site. “All it really takes to get started is a cotton swab of the inside of your cheek. So please, get tested today. Who knows? You might be my match. And remember… ‘One swab will do the job.’”

When news of Shannon’s condition reached the press, Alicia Keys, Rihanna and 50 Cent all tried to help find a donor and cast members held donor registration drives at the Minskoff Theater, where the show is based.

10,000 people signed up, but not one was a match for Shannon.

“It’s rare that you meet such a spirited girl,” Harf told the Huff Post. “She touched so many people to register. She was really a special girl.”

Funeral arrangements are now in progress. Meantime, please remember Shannon and her folks in your prayers…

Text © 2009, The Loquacious Limey
All rights reserved.

Cancer claims ‘Lion King’s Shannon Tavarez at age 11

The BBC reports the two actors stopped a Broadway preview of the Keith Huff drama, ‘A Steady Rain’ in the midst of a scene because one audience member did not bother to silence their cellphone, and the ringing was audible right through the house.

Secretly-filmed footage, seen here, shows Hugh telling the offender to answer the call and thus give them some peace. “We can wait,” he assures them. “Don’t be embarrassed – just grab it.”

In the play, Australia-born Jackman [who'll be 41 on October 12,] and his co-star, Daniel Craig, 40, play childhood friends who grow up to be Chicago policemen and suffer traumatic life changes after a sequence of awful events.

And the two actors are by no means the first to endure such self-absorbed ignorance; Harry Potter star, Richard Griffiths made headlines in Britain in 2004 when he had an audience member literally thrown out of the National Theatre after their phone repeatedly interrupted Griffiths’ performance in ‘The History Boys.’

Luckily for the perpetrator of this unthinking insult, both Craig and Jackman remained entirely in character during the interruption, and the play continued once silence returned.

The show officially opens this week and runs at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre on West 45th street until December 6th.

Text © 2009, The Loquacious Limey
All rights reserved.

Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman stop the show