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Actor, set to take stage, struck by car and killed walking to SF theater
A man, just hours away from fulfilling his dream of taking the stage to perform was killed, walking on a San Francisco sidewalk. Colleagues say the 65-year-old was struck by a car speeding along a Lower-Nob Hill street. SFPD a driver at the scene. The actor was scheduled to perform in a production of Death of a Salesman.
SAN FRANCISCO - A pedestrian who was killed in a 2-car accident over the weekend in San Francisco, was hours away from his lifelong dream of acting in his first show of the season.
Richard D. May found his calling late in life, in acting.
But tragically, his life was cut short, when colleagues say, he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
At 65-years old, Richard D. May was and thriving in his passion of acting for the African American Shakespeare Company,
Saturday morning, around 10:40 a.m. in San Francisco, May was walking along Post Street at Hyde.
Sherri Young is the Executive Director and founder of the theater company that May discovered started acting with the company back in March.
Young said, "If he had just waited to buy something at a café, and missed that accident, he would have been performing in his very first show with us!’
Richard D. May was scheduled to perform that fateful Saturday night, October 28th, in the first of a three weekend run of ‘Death of a Salesman’.
May was a very popular actor in the company.
Young shared ‘Everybody was just so elated. He was such a talented individual; we just swooped him up. He was cast in 3 of 4 shows this season!"
But Saturday night’s show couldn’t go on.
Young shared, the floor director kept calling May’s mobile phone as call time for the show came and went.
The show had to be canceled.
The cast was distraught.
Anthony Bernardo was working when he heard the crash.
He described a white BMW speeding eastbound on Post through the Hyde Street intersection, clipped a black audi, which spun around and hit may walking down the street.
"I heard a car zooming past really, really fast and then we heard three loud ass crashes! Boom, Boom, Boom! We ran outside and it was just hectic!’
San Francisco Police showed up on the scene immediately, according to Bernardo.
The driver of the white BMW was arrested on site.
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Richard D. May died at the scene.
Young said, "He had overcome challenges and then some, but he was soaring! Soaring!"
"He was living one of his best lives doing what he loved!
Darien Caine, a colleague who’s acted for five years at the company shared, "May had a brightness about him defied everything you could have expected to be about someone who had been through so many things like that."
From homelessness to substance abuse, Young shared, May had overcome those obstacles, and was passionate about being in theatre.
Caine said, "He’ll be missed dearly!"
Alice Wertz is a freelance reporter with KTVU. She can be reached at Alice.Wertz@Fox.com Instagram/Threads