Broken Leg Forces Michael McKean Off Broadway Performance of "The Best Man"

Keeping Michael McKean off the Broadway stage took literally breaking a leg.

It's unfortunate fate has such a literal sense of humor. McKean suffered a broken leg in a Tuesday afternoon car-pedestrian accident in New York, the Associated Press reports. McKean, 64, suffered a broken leg when he was struck by a car at - of all the intersections - West 86th Street and Broadway in Manhattan around 3 PM, the Associated Press reports.

The injury knocked McKean out of his revival role in producer Jeffrey Richards' production of Gore Vidal's "The Best Man."

"I understand from his team that he has never missed a performance in his career," Richards said in a release, adding that McKean was hospitalized in stable condition. "So this is the kind of first we are reluctant to announce."

In Richards' production of Vidal's tale of two fictitious 1960 presidential candidates named Bill Russell and Joe Cantwell at their respective parties' national conventions, McKean had been portraying Russell's campaign director. Richards announced that James Lecesne, who previously played the smaller role of a Washington Post reporter in his Broadway debut, would be stepping into McKean's role as McKean heals. Twice extended already, the play runs until Sept. 9.

McKean, a frequent collaborator of director Christopher Guest, is easily best known for his role as lead singer David St. Hubbins in director Rob Reiner's 1984 rock mockumentary "This Is Spinal Tap." In "The Best Man," he'd been co-starring alongside James Earl Jones John Larroquette, Candice Bergen, Kerry Butler, Angela Lansbury and Eric McCormack.