LAS VEGAS - While Hyman Gold lay dying in a Las Vegas hospital bed, his wife Sue kept a secret.
Sue Gold, as devoted to her husband as he was to her, didn't want him to know that she was dying as well.
Sue had cancer and eventually became so ill that her daily visits to Hyman stopped earlier this month when she was admitted to a local hospice. It was not until last Thursday that a relative told Hyman that Sue also was near death.
The news was devastating. The couple had been inseparable during their 22-year marriage, friends and family said.
The couple had met on the set of the film "Lookin' to Get Out" in 1980, where they were extras portraying tourists. They would later appear together as extras in other films, including the 1992 movie "Honey, I Blew Up the Kid."
Hyman, a cellist who performed with orchestras around the country and in shows on the Strip, and Sue, a former fashion model and actress, were married in 1982.
Last Saturday, the couple talked on the phone. But Sue, her health failing, couldn't say much. So Hyman did.
"He spent the first couple of minutes on the phone making sure it was Sue, saying, 'Is this you, my beloved, is it really you?"' said Vera Astarita, a longtime friend who was in the room with Hyman. "He told her that she sounded well and that he was looking forward to being released so he could come and be with her."
Hyman, who had battled pneumonia, was scheduled to be released to a convalescent home the next day.
"Hyman was full of hope and he looked better than he had looked in a long time," Astarita said. "He just kept telling her 'I love you' and that he was looking forward to being with her."
It was their last conversation.
Sue, 70, died at 6:30 a.m. the next day. Hyman died less than two hours later, at 8:15 a.m., before his family could tell him Sue had died.
"She was so worried about him being by himself, so I believe her prayers were answered that they would go together," said stepdaughter Theresa "Tippy" Peeler of Benton, Tenn. "Now she will be able to take care of him forever."