Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also fade-out act) a disappearance, a departure, an escape.

1924		Hecht & Bodenheim Cutie 24: Then slowly in his dream the windmill and the snake did a fadeout.
1933		‘Goat’ Laven Rough Stuff 211: That is preparing the way for my final fade out.
1934		M. Fulcher ‘Believe Me’ in Afro-American (Baltimore, MD) 17 Nov. 12/3: Malc is figuring on doing a fade-out act on this column.
1946		Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues 61: [We] walked around so chesty we would have made Miss Peacock pull a fade-out.
1959		W. Brown Teen-Age Mafia 96: One by one they’d pull a fadeout, just drift away.
1960		Mad mag. June 50: Take your chops and do a fadeout, move your backside from my door!
1965		(con. 1930s) R. Wright Lawd Today 212: And that Blanche dame did a quick fadeout.
1993		A. Rodriguez Spidertown (1994) 4: I don’t know wha’ chu gonna do when we gotta do a sudden fade-out.
2006		Kiss & Blog 24 July [blog] Funny that. The way she did a fadeout on you before you even got in.

2. death.

1936		L. Pound ‘Amer. Euphemisms for Dying’ in AS XI:3 200: Made a fadeout.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
1952		(con. 1923) G. Fowler Schnozzola 129: Madden [...] had been made a scapegoat for Little Patsy’s fade-out.