Wonderland Burlesque: Sunday Diva/Three From The Hip: Rosemary Clooney

Sunday, August 20, 2023

Sunday Diva/Three From The Hip: Rosemary Clooney

Sunday Diva/Three From The Hip:

Rosemary Clooney

In my own personal big gay church, there is a wing devoted to the sainted known as 'The Working Girls'. Typically, these women have had long, varied careers; hosting shows, acting in movies and on television, doing variety shows, Vegas and working for a cause. They are legends because they have earned it.

One such hardy soul?

The effervescent Rosemary Clooney.

A true treasure.

With a voice both rich and mirthful, Clooney began her career singing duets with her sister Betty for WLW radio in Cincinnati. At the time, Clooney was 16 and Betty was 13. It was Betty who had the chutzpah to get them an open audition at WLW, along with the savvy to get them home by asking for a $2 advance on their singing gig.

The girls were very much on their own. After their parents divorced, their mother remarried and moved to California, while their father disappeared one night after a drinking binge.

As her confidence grew, so did her opportunities. Soon she was fronting big bands for the likes of Duke Ellington, Nelson Riddle, Woody Herman, and Count Basie.

Under the guiding hand of Mitch Miller, our diva began recording for Columbia but got stuck singing what she considered novelty songs - extremely popular and they made her a household name, but not exactly her cup of musical tea.

When Hollywood came calling she danced to whatever tune they told her to, keeping her weight in check and her smile in place.

Bob Hope and Bing Crosby adored her, as did the nation.

She then married the man of her dreams, Jose Ferrer - not once, but twice!

But, indeed - love didn't do right by her. He was a serial cheater.

Six children later...

After their second divorce, it was the start of a downward spiral as our diva quickly became dependent on pills - to keep her up, to help her down, to keep her disappointment and demons at bay.

"I loved downers, almost any kind. Loved the colors of them. Loved them yellow... I did. I would just have a bouquet in my hands at night."

It all came to an angry head one night in Reno in 1968; a full-blown nervous breakdown - right there on stage for all the world to see.

She was hospitalized, institutionalized, and thereafter remained under psychiatric care for eight years.

But her dreams were far from over. She still had her music. She still had her legacy.

She still had her name.

And, as she had in the past, she used it to its fullest advantage, as spokesperson for Cornet paper products she was in the living rooms of homes throughout America on a daily basis - household name once more.

And thanks in part to Bing and Bob... she mounted a comeback and finally made it to Carnegie Hall! Signed to a new label, Concord Records - who allowed her free reign - at last she could record the music she'd always wanted to sing. Accolades and Grammy award nominations quickly followed.

And then... life handed her one more pleasant surprise she never saw coming. The man she'd left for Jose Ferrer all those years ago reappeared in her life. He adored her. They married and remained so until her passing.

The loss of her sister, as well as numerous professional comrades pained Rosemary. But she kept on working. She kept on singing, right to the end.

The gospel according to her.

Well, here are three from the hip, dropping from her lips.

The topic? The Road To Authenticity

"I felt trapped and fabricated in the fifties living up to other people's expectations."

"I think acting is the most thankless profession in the world."

"My confidence seemed to come naturally, based on my early and continuing interest in music. I'd listened to so many singers that I just somehow knew I could do it as well as almost anybody."

"I've never thought of myself as a jazz singer. I know a lot of people, musicians, mostly, do think of me that way, because I have certain jazz attributes that I can incorporate into whatever I'm singing; I have good time, and a certain way of phrasing, and I know where the beat is. But my definition of a jazz singer is an improvisational musician, like Ella, or Carmen McRae, or Mel Tormé. I have very little in the way of improvisational skill, because I don't read music and I don't have the ear for it. I'd call myself a sweet singer with a big band sensibility."

"I'd earned a freedom, an artistic authority, that I'd never dared to imagine."

"I’ll keep working as long as I live because singing has taken on the feeling of joy that I had when I started, when my only responsibility was to sing well."

"I'm the only instrument that's got the words, so I've got to be able to get that across."

"I just would like to keep singing. As soon as I'm not singing well, I hope that I know it, so that I can get off the stage and leave what I have done. I hope I'll know, and if I don't, I hope somebody tells me."