Robert Kelker-Kelly’s cause of death was ruled arteriosclerotic heart disease nearly a month after he died on Oct. 3. The Office of the Regional Medical Examiner in St. Charles, Mo. said the manner of death was natural.
Allison Kelly’s account
Allison Kelly told authorities that during the drive home from the airport, he complained of pain in his left arm and pain in his chest and said he felt the need to vomit. After he got home, he told her he did not need to go to the hospital.
She then went to retrieve an aspirin and found him unresponsive and not breathing. She began CPR before paramedics attempted life-saving measures, and he was pronounced dead at 9:09 p.m. on Oct. 3.
Oct. 29 ruling
The office issued its determination on Oct. 29, giving a formal answer to the sudden death reported earlier this month. For readers, the practical point is simple: the death has now been medically classified, even if the chain of events in those final hours was sudden and abrupt.
That classification fits arteriosclerotic heart disease, which is the kind of disease process that involves hardened and narrowed arteries rather than a single dramatic external event. It also leaves the underlying medical circumstances around his final symptoms unexplained in the source, beyond the chest and arm pain, nausea, and collapse that came first.
Robert Kelker-Kelly’s final hours
Kelly’s account shows the difficult judgment families face in real time: the actor initially declined hospital treatment even after the pain started. By the time she returned with aspirin, the situation had already changed, and she moved straight to CPR.
Robert Kelker-Kelly was 62 years old. He had 434 episodes on Another World from 1987 to 1998, 586 episodes as Bo Brady on Days of Our Lives from 1992 to 1995, and 42 episodes as Stavros Cassadine on General Hospital from 2001 to 2014.
Sandra Dee Robinson, who was his Another World costar and onscreen love interest, posted a tribute on Oct. 5 and wrote, “My first years in TV on Another World were a whirlwind and Robert and I had no idea how popular our storyline would be… or what that meant,” and later added that she was “grateful to have had the opportunity to know him.”
