{"id":3949,"date":"2026-02-23T17:51:26","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T17:51:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/heightshowtime.com\/?p=3949"},"modified":"2026-02-23T17:51:26","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T17:51:26","slug":"phantom-of-the-opera-star-dies-at-46","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/heightshowtime.com\/?p=3949","title":{"rendered":"Phantom of the Opera star dies at 46"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The theater world is mourning.<br \/>\nBen Lewis, the West End star best known for his roles in The Phantom of the Opera and Andrew Lloyd Webber\u2019s Love Never Dies, has died.<\/p>\n<div class=\"code-block code-block-1\" style=\"margin: 8px 0; clear: both;\">\n<div data-type=\"_mgwidget\" data-widget-id=\"1694729\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>The Australian actor passed away at 46, after a battle with bowel cancer.<\/p>\n<div class=\"code-block code-block-3\" style=\"margin: 8px 0; clear: both;\">\n<div data-type=\"_mgwidget\" data-widget-id=\"1694729\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u201cOne of the greats\u201d<br \/>\nThe sad news was shared on Instagram on Monday, October 6, by his friend and Australian TV host Todd Woodbridge, who described Lewis as \u201cone of the greats.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBen was a star on stage as Phantom\u2026in Phantom of the Opera on the West End,\u201d Woodbridge wrote. \u201cMore importantly he was one of the great humans, funny, caring, and a wonderful mentor to all of the people he work[ed] with.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"code-block code-block-5\" style=\"margin: 8px 0; clear: both;\">\n<div data-type=\"_mgwidget\" data-widget-id=\"1842904\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><!-- CONTENT END 2 --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The theater world is mourning. Ben Lewis, the West End star best known for his roles in The Phantom of the Opera and Andrew Lloyd Webber\u2019s Love Never Dies, has &hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3950,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/heightshowtime.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/heightshowtime.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/heightshowtime.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/heightshowtime.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/heightshowtime.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3949"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/heightshowtime.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3949\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3951,"href":"https:\/\/heightshowtime.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3949\/revisions\/3951"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/heightshowtime.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/heightshowtime.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/heightshowtime.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/heightshowtime.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}