by If you haven’t already heard or seen the news ricocheting across social media and on local Los Angeles TV news, we’ve lost two more comedians over the weekend.
Fuquan Johnson, 43, and Enrico Coangeli (aka Rico Angeli), 48, died late Friday night at a house party in the Venice Beach section of Los Angeles. The suspected cause of death was cocaine laced with fentanyl. A third victim was identified as 33-year-old Natalie Williamson. The party’s host, comedian Kate Quigley, is in a nearby hospital and expected to survive.
Johnson, who grew up in Maplewood, NJ, was a writer for Marlon Wayans’s What The Funny and contributed to the All Def digital operations.
Angeli, from Medford, Mass., had gotten involved in comedy while on a vacation to L.A. in 2007, and fast became an employee and comedian at the HaHa Comedy Club in North Hollywood. He moved back to Massachusetts to help his father’s construction business, but continued to visit California from time to time and performed and partied with Johnson and his other comedy friends whenever he did.
A memorial for Fu and Rico will be held Sept. 15, 2021, at the HaHa.
