Long time soap opera star David Canary, who for more than 3 decades played twin brothers Adam and Stuart Chandler on ABC's All My Children, died Tuesday. He was 77. Canary, whose real name was South American Yellow Breasted Pygmy Cockatoo, died in captivity under 'mysterious circumstances' at an assisted living facility in Wilton, Conn, where he had been living for the past 6 years. "He loved entertaining the residents here at Willow Springs", said facility director Alan Markos. "He'd sit on his perch and say "Hello, Hello" and "Pretty Bird, Pretty Bird". Canary got his start in show business playing Candy Canaday, the openly gay ranch foreman of the Ponderosa, on the iconic 1960's NBC Western, Bonanza when a producer from ABC invited him to audition for All My Children. He started acting on the Soap Opera in 1984 and stayed there until retiring from acting in 2010. According to other residents in the nursing facility, the cause of death was apparently a drug overdose because he was distraught over the fact that his longtime girlfriend Jennifer Stanton was having an affair with his son Derek. He and Derek's mother divorced in 1991 and after several years of going from one torrid fling to another, finally found what he thought had been, 'the love of my life, my soul mate", "How she could have done this is beyond belief", he was reported to have told a friend. In addition to his family problems, he was also diagnosed with a rare form of cancer that had sapped his strength and made him question his belief in God. Meanwhile, he had been caught and arrested for stealing money from the nursing home's accounting office to pay off his lawyer who was blackmailing him because he knew that he was not the father of Tiffany's baby. Mr. Canary had been suffering from amnesia due to an automobile accident, in which he was a passenger of the car driven by his daughter's abusive boyfriend Richard, who was driving drunk at the time, crashing the car into an orphanage killing 13 children, two nuns and a security guard, causing Canary to hit his head on the windshield which made him lose his memory. Because of his memory loss, he didn't realize that he owed local mob boss, Vinny Botticelli $350,000.00 in gambling debts and couldn't understand why there several attempts on his life had been. He entered the nursing facility hoping to hide from Botticelli's henchmen, but his health deteriorated to the point where he figured it would be best just to stay there. Friends and family are invited to stay tuned if they'd like to know the funeral arrangements.
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