Rosemary Clooney has passed away

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/US/reuters20020630_5.html

 

Oh what a sad loss. She was a friend of my wifes Mom years ago. We really loved her voice. Rest In Peace Rosemary.

 

This is actually too sad even to discuss right now.

 

So very sad.She was one of my fave all-time singers.It just brings it home to me that when those original singers of what's known as the Great American Songbook pass away,there isn't anyone of the same calibre to replace them.She will be missed.Here's something I picked up on her life and career from another site

Rosemary Clooney dies at 74
By Bob Thomas
30jun02

LOS ANGELES: Rosemary Clooney, the mellow-voiced singer who costarred with Bing Crosby in "White Christmas" and staged a dramatic comeback after her career was nearly destroyed by drugs and alcohol, has died. She was 74.

Clooney died shortly after 6pm yesterday at her Beverly Hills home surrounded by her family, her publicist said. She had been hospitalised earlier this month after suffering a recurrence of lung cancer.

Clooney soared to fame with her 1951 record of "Come on-a My House," and became a star in television and films. Her career was sidelined after her marriage to Oscar-winning actor Jose Ferrer and the births of their five children.

The pair divorced, and her attempts to return to performing were sabotaged by her erratic behaviour.

Having undergone a series of emotional upsets, the blond singer had a breakdown during a 1968 engagement in Reno.

She walked off the stage in a rage without finishing her act. As she recalled in her 1977 autobiography, This for Remembrance, she "fumed" in her dressing room.

She underwent harrowing confinement in a psychotic ward, then began rebuilding her life, gradually resuming her career and reaching new heights as a singer.

Born in Maysville, Kentucky, on May 23, 1928, Rosemary Clooney started singing with her younger sister, Betty, on WLW radio in Cincinnati in 1945. Their salary: $US20 ($35.50) each.

In 1951, Mitch Miller, the mentor of Columbia Records, offered her Come on-a My House, by Armenian-American author William Saroyan.

She first refused to record the song, but Miller threatened to fire her. She agreed, using an Italian accent instead of Armenian "because it was the only kind of accent I knew".

The song became a huge hit, and her first royalty check amounted to $US130,000 ($230,990). She catapulted to stardom. In 1952 she signed a contract with Paramount Pictures.

Paramount starred her in four musicals: The Stars Are Singing, Here Come the Girls, with Bob Hope, a Western spoof Red Garters, and White Christmas, with Crosby and Danny Kaye.

In 1953 she married Ferrer, the Puerto Rico-born actor and director whose brilliant stage career had been followed by success in films. He received an Academy Award as best actor in Cyrano de Bergerac in 1950.

It was the first marriage for Clooney, 25, the third for Ferrer, 41. Their first son, Miguel, was born in 1955. He was followed by Maria, 1956; Gabriel, 1957; Monsita, 1958; Rafael, 1960.

Actor George Clooney is Rosemary Clooney's nephew, the son of her brother, veteran TV newscaster Nick Clooney.

Clooney had also starred in two TV variety series, but the conflict of maintaining a career and a home for her husband and young children began to trouble her.

Ferrer's womanising caused her to divorce him in 1961. After a three-year reconciliation, they divorced for the final time in 1967.

More misfortune befell the singer. A two-year liaison with a young drummer ended when he walked out on her.

She was devastated by King's assassination, and was present with two of her children in the ballroom of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles when Kennedy was shot.

For years she had taken pills to assuage personal grief and maintain her double life as a star and a single mother. Overeating had caused her to gain 20kgs. Her children and associates became alarmed at her irrational behaviour.

Miguel recalled in a 1976 interview that his mother became "wild, uncontrollable. Once she told a cab driver she had a gun and would kill him. When I started to cry, she shoved her rosary in my hand and told me to pray for him."

She later detailed her transfer to a double-locked room ("I was a violent case in a violent ward") in St John's Hospital in Santa Monica, where she had given birth to her five children.

Clooney's book was adapted for a 1982 TV movie, "Rosie: The Rosemary Clooney Story," with Sondra Locke portraying her.

After four years of therapy, Clooney returned to performing in 1972 at Copenhagen's Tivoli Gardens. For the first time in years, she found joy in entertaining an audience.

"Then at Christmas in 1975 Bing called me," she said in a 1985 Associated Press interview. "He said he was going to do a concert at the Los Angeles Music Centre.

Would I appear with him?"

She agreed, thinking it would be a one-time benefit.

But the pair continued on to Chicago, New York and London. The Clooney career was reborn. She won a new record contract, and singing dates poured in.

In 1995, she received an Emmy Award nomination for guest actress in a drama series for her role on ER with her nephew.

The Associated Press

 

Sad news indeed. RIP
Dan C

 

The great Rosemary Clooney was such a big part of America and American music. She will be sorely missed. RIP.

 

Yes, it is a very loss in the entertainment world. Her music will live on forever like all music that has stood the test of time and still does.

 

I'm saddened to hear this news. I met Rosie last fall when I did an in-store with her in SF. Although she was touring the country and was obviously not in the best of health, she didn't let it show. She was very sweet and down home, and stayed until the last person in line got to meet her and get an autograph. Definitely one of my best experiences with a celebrity. She will be missed.

 

Not to mention being the aunt of George Clooney(and his father, the guy that was a host on AMC in the 90's, who's name escapes me right now). A fine singer. RIP.

 

Is it Nick Clooney who hosts the AMC segments?

Anyway, I remember hearing about the recurrence of cancer quite some time ago, which I was very sad to hear. I know a neighbor who's had a recurrence, as well, and it's cruel to go through that a second time.

Rest in peace, Rosemary.