Rose Marie
| Rose Marie | |
|---|---|
 Rose Marie in 1970. | |
| Born |
Rose Marie Mazetta August 15, 1923 New York City, New York, U.S. |
| Occupation | Actress, singer |
| Years active | 1926–present |
Rose Marie (born August 15, 1923) is an American actress. As a child performer she had a successful singing career as Baby Rose Marie. She was married to trumpeter Bobby Guy from 1946 until his death in 1964.[1] A veteran of vaudeville, Rose Marie's career includes film, records, theater, night clubs, and television. Her most famous role was television comedy writer Sally Rogers on the CBS situation comedy The Dick Van Dyke Show. She later portrayed Myrna Gibbons on CBS's The Doris Day Show and was also a frequent panelist on the game show Hollywood Squares.
Early years
Rose Marie Mazetta was born in New York City, New York, to Italian-American Frank Mazetta and Polish-American Stella Gluszcak. At the age of three, she started performing under the name "Baby Rose Marie". At five, she became a radio star on NBC and made a series of films. Rose Marie was a nightclub and lounge performer in her teenage years before becoming a radio comedian. She was billed then as "The Darling of the Airwaves." According to her autobiography, Hold the Roses,[2] she was assisted in her career by many members of organized crime, including Al Capone and Bugsy Siegel. She performed at the opening night of the Flamingo Hotel, which was built by Siegel.[3] At her height of fame as a child singer (late 1929–1934), she had her own radio show, made numerous records, and was featured in a number of Paramount films and shorts. In 1929, the five- or six-year-old singer made a Vitaphone sound short titled "Baby Rose Marie the Child Wonder", now restored and available in the Warner Bros. DVD set of The Jazz Singer. She continued to appear in films through the mid-1930s, making shorts and a feature, International House (1933) with W. C. Fields, for Paramount.
Recordings
Between 1930 and 1938, she made 17 recordings; three of which were unissued. Her first issued record, recorded on March 10, 1932, featured accompaniment by Fletcher Henderson's band, one of the premier black jazz orchestras. According to "Hendersonia" the bio-discography by Walter C. Allen, Henderson was in the Victor studios recording the four songs they were intending to produce that day and were asked to accompany Baby Rose Marie, reading from a stock arrangement.
Television
In the 1960–1961 season, Rose Marie co-starred with Shirley Bonne, Elaine Stritch, Jack Weston, Raymond Bailey, and Stubby Kaye in the CBS sitcom My Sister Eileen. She played Bertha, a friend of the Sherwood sisters: Ruth, a magazine writer, played by Stritch, and Eileen, an aspiring actress, Bonne's role. After five seasons (1961-1966) of The Dick Van Dyke Show', Rose Marie co-starred in two seasons (1969-1971) of CBS's The Doris Day Show as Doris Martin's friend and co-worker, Myrna Gibbons. She also appeared in two episodes of the NBC series The Monkees in the mid-1960s. She later had a semi-regular seat in the upper center square on the original version of Hollywood Squares, alongside her friend and longtime Dick Van Dyke co-star, Morey Amsterdam. She also appeared on both the 1986 and 1998 syndicated revivals. In the early 1990s, she had a recurring role as Frank Fontana's mother on the CBS sitcom Murphy Brown. She also appeared as Roy Biggins's domineering mother, Eleanor "Bluto" Biggins, in an episode of the television series Wings. Rose Marie and Morey Amsterdam guest-starred together in a February 1996 episode of the NBC sitcom Caroline in the City, shortly before Amsterdam's death in October of that same year. She appeared with the surviving Dick Van Dyke Show cast members in a 2004 reunion special. Rose Marie was especially close to actor Richard Deacon from that show, and offered him the suits left behind when her husband died in 1964, as the two men were of similar height and build.Theater
From 1977 to 1981, Rose Marie co-starred with Rosemary Clooney, Helen O'Connell and Margaret Whiting in the musical revue 4 Girls 4, which toured the United States and appeared on television several times. She was the celebrity guest host of a comedy play, Grandmas Rock! written by Gordon Durich, and originally broadcast on radio in 2010 on KVTA and KKZZ, and rebroadcast on KVTA and KKZZ again in September 2012 in honor of National Grandparents Day. A CD of the show was also produced, featuring audio clips from The Dick Van Dyke Show. In 2011, she continues to occasionally perform.
Filmography
Feature films
Short subjects |
Television
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References
Notes
- ↑ "Rose Marie Takes Role On Stage, Nixes Clubs"
- ↑ Hold the Roses, ISBN 0-8131-2264-3
- ↑ Meyer Lansky: Mogul of the Mob, ISBN 0-7092-0151-6
External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Rose Marie. |
- An interview with Rose Marie, March 2011
- Rose Marie at the Internet Movie Database
- Rose Marie at the TCM Movie Database
- Rose Marie at AllRovi
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