Michael McKean receives most ironic actor-injury possible
When actors tell each other “break a leg” before a performance, they’re engaging in a bit of theater superstition that suggests wishing people good luck might actually bring about bad luck. Apparently someone wished actor Michael McKean good luck before a performance yesterday—he sustained a broken leg after being hit by a car while walking on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. The 64-year-old McKean is best known as Lenny from Laverne & Shirley, David St. Hubbins of Spinal Tap, a mainstay of Christopher Guest’s mockumentary factory, and an Academy Award nominee for Best Original Song for A Mighty Wind’s “A Kiss At The End Of The Rainbow,” which he co-wrote with his wife, Annette O’Toole. He’s reported to be in stable condition at St. Luke’s Hospital. His press representative, Harriet Sternberg, assured reporters and possible future employers that the occasion marks “the first time he will have ever missed a curtain call in his entire life.”