[Dixielandjazz] DELETE NOW IF YOU DON'T LIKE ROSEMARY CLOONEY

[Stephen Barbone]

LIST MATES

ROSEMARY CLOONEY OBIT FOLLOWS. DELETE BEFORE READING IF NOT YOUR KIND OF
MUSIC.
APOLOGIZE IN ADVANCE FOR POSTING. HAD NUMEROUS REQUESTS FROM LIST
MEMBERS TO FORWARD IT AFTER PREVIOUS OFFER TO DO SO OFF LIST. LEADS ME
TO CONCLUDE THAT SHE IS LOVED AND ADMIRED BY MANY FANS OF OKOM, EVEN
THOUGH - NOT DIXIELAND.

Note especially the last sentence of the 3rd paragraph. That is pretty
much a major part of the definition of OKOM isn't it?
Note also that the Michael's Pub (NYC caberet) review highlighted in
paragraph 4 was posted by me a while back..

Apologetic Cheers
Steve (bebopper) Barbone


June 30, 2002 NEW YORK TIMES

Rosemary Clooney, 74, Legendary Warm-Voiced Singer of Jazz and Pop Hits,

Dies

By RICHARD SEVERO

Rosemary Clooney, whose warm, radiant voice placed her in the first rank

of American popular singers for more than half a
century, died last night at her home in Beverly Hills. She was 74.

The cause was complications from lung cancer, according to her
spokeswoman, Linda Dozoretz.

Ms. Clooney did not dig as deeply into the emotional content of a song
as Frank Sinatra did; she never tried to emulate the sound and delivery
of an instrument as Mel Tormé seemed to do so easily; she did not burst
into the scat choruses favored by Ella Fitzgerald. But she sang with so
much assuredness, simplicity and honesty that these elements became her
trademark and endeared her to audiences and critics alike.

In recent years Ms. Clooney had been appearing in the best cabarets and
concert stages singing pop-jazz standards that earned her new audiences
and renewed respect. Reviewing a performance at Michael's Pub in
Manhattan, Stephen Holden of The New
York Times said of her: "Her special strength is an ability to infuse
everything she touches with warmth, intelligence and a subtly swinging
energy that make her interpretations of standards models of balance and
clarity. Her emotional perspective is
dry-eyed and perceptive. "

Although she did her best work singing standards with a fidelity to
their composers, Johnny Mercer and Harold Arlen, Cole
Porter, Duke Ellington, George and Ira Gershwin, Johnny Burke, Jimmy Van

Heusen and Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, her beginnings were
decidedly in a genre not nearly so distinguished. She became one of
America's best-known popular singers in1951 with a novelty called
"Come-on-a-My House," and followed that with other novelties like
"Botcha-Me," "Mambo Italiano," and "This Old House." songs that her
audiences always wanted to hear.

Some fans even occasionally asked her to sing "How Much Is That Doggie
in the Window," a novelty that belonged to Patti Page. "They probably
figure if it's a bad song I must have done it," she once said.

But even then Ms. Clooney recorded ballads like "Tenderly" and "Hey
There" with such simplicity and beauty that they also
became songs indelibly associated with her. Ms. Clooney with a good
ballad was always approachable and intimate.

Her early career reached a height in 1954 when she appeared opposite
Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye singing Irving Berlin songs in the hit
musical "White Christmas." But her good looks and cheery disposition
masked a life with more than its share of pain.

She survived a disastrous marriage to the actor Jose Ferrer; she was
scarred by the assassination of her friend Robert Kennedy,
which she witnessed first hand; she abused drugs and had affairs that
disappointed and wounded her; she had a childhood of
uncertainty with an affably alcoholic father and a mother who eventually

deserted the family.

And yet Ms. Clooney never completely lost her admiration for Mr. Ferrer,

the father of her five children, whom she married and
divorced twice, not even after she learned of his womanizing during
their marriage that led her to conclude that he was breaking
her heart "in small increments." And she always made a place in her home

for the parents who had not done the same for her
when she was a child.

Rosemary Clooney was born May 23, 1928, in Maysville, Ky., a small town
on the Ohio River southeast of Cincinnati. She was
one of five children born to Andrew and Frances Guilfoyle Clooney. Mr.
Clooney was a house painter who drank so much and
so often that his own father, a jeweler who served several terms as
mayor of Maysville, had his son jailed for public drunkenness.

Rosemary and her sister Betty began to sing publicly, at first for
political rallies for her grandfather, who was mayor of Maysville, later

at amateur contests throughout northern Kentucky and southern Ohio.

When Rosemary was in high school and Betty was in junior high, radio
station WLW in Cincinnati conducted a talent contest.
The sisters won and for a time were heard seven nights a week, earning
$20 each.

The sisters began to sing with Barney Rapp's big band, which performed
around Cincinnati. An agent for Tony Pastor heard them and for the next
three years the Clooney Sisters became vocalists for the Pastor big
band.

In 1946, Rosemary Clooney made her first solo recording, "I'm Sorry I
Didn't Say I'm Sorry When I Made You Cry Last Night," which attracted
attention because she sang it in a whisper that disk jockeys all around
the country speculated was was going to be the new style. In reality,
she had been so petrified when she stood before the microphone that she
could not sing the song in full voice as she had intended.

By 1947, she was gaining notice. In 1948, Betty Clooney quit the Pastor
band, but Rosemary stayed with him another year before she left as well,

hopeful of success because she had signed a contract with Columbia
Records. The initial deal was that she would be paid $50 a recording.

In 1950 she attracted favorable attention with an appearance on the
"Songs For Sale" television show and with her recording of
"Beautiful Brown Eyes," her first real hit for Columbia. She started to
appear regularly on television.

But her first megahit came the next year, when Mitch Miller, the artist
and repertory man at Columbia, persuaded her to sing
"Come On-a My House." From the instant that Ms. Clooney heard it she
thought it was dreadful and told Mr. Miller she would
not sing it but He insisted. The recording became a runaway best seller
and Ms. Clooney became a star.

The success emboldened Mr. Miller to assign her to other novelty songs,
most notably "Botcha Me" and "Mambo Italiano" that
also became hits. When she made her screen debut in "The Stars Are
Singing," she was trumpeted as "the next Betty Hutton" and she made the
cover of Time magazine in 1953 with her bouncier image.

"I always wanted to sing sad ballads, but I didn't get many
opportunities," Ms. Clooney once told Stephen Holden of The Times. "If I

found something I wanted to do, I had to get permission. At the same
time, you can't quarrel with success. If it hadn't been for `Come on-a
My House,' I probably wouldn't be here now."

Ms. Clooney remained busy and successful for the rest of the 1950's. She

married Mr. Ferrer in 1953 and made more movies,
including "White Christmas" in 1954 with Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye and
Vera-Ellen.

But in the early 1960's she and Mr. Ferrer became estranged, she had an
affair with the arranger Nelson Riddle, and she slowly became addicted
to sleeping pills. Her work habits became erratic and she got tagged as
being undependable. She found it
difficult to find work. Her singing deteriorated.

By the end of the decade, she was "dead behind the eyes," she recalled
in her 1977 memoir, "This For Remembrance." Her
divorce from Mr. Ferrer became final in 1967.

In 1968, she supported the presidential aspirations of Senator Robert F.

Kennedy and was standing near him when he was shot to death in Los
Angeles. Ms. Clooney, recalling the day in her memoir, said she was
convinced that he hadn't died, that it was
somehow all a big hoax.

Her self-destructive rampage continued until she spent a month in the
psychiatric ward of Mount Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles.
And when she emerged, She was short of money and supported herself by
singing for anyone who would pay her. Mostly it was weekend work at
Holiday Inns.

Her fortunes changed again in 1974 when Bing Crosby asked her to appear
with him at a show marking his 50th anniversary in
show business. She did well and then made several successful tours with
him and also toured with Margaret Whiting, Helen
O'Connell and Rose Marie in a show called "4 Girls 4."

She suffered a setback in 1976 when her sister Betty died of an aneurysm

but regained control of herself and worked on her
memoirs.

In the 1990's, she recorded many songs for the Concord Jazz label and
the critics agreed that her voice had gotten better.

She is survived by her children: the actor Miguel Ferrer; Maria, a
designer; Gabriel, a painter married to Debby Boone; Monsita
Teresa; Rafael, a voice-over actor, and her husband, Dante DiPaolo, a
dancer. Other survivors include a nephew, George Clooney, the actor.