Late Life Jazz: The Life and Career of Rosemary Clooney (33 page)

The newlywed Rosemary moved into 1998 with a new spring in her step, literally. Her knee had now healed sufficiently for her to resume her normal summer touring routine and she had again—she said—quit smoking. Not everyone believed it, but there was no question that at least the partial elimination of tobacco helped her voice. Philip Elwood, in a long distance telephone interview in the summer of 1996, observed, “I’ve never heard her voice so clear—no wheeze, not a cough in a half hour’s conversation.”
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A year later, she could be heard telling Larry King that the decision had helped her breath control, though with typical Clooney honesty, she admitted that she still retained the longing for cigarettes. “If I see someone smoking in the street,” she said, “I slipstream in behind them.”
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Nevertheless, there were those who remained concerned about Rosemary’s health. By now she was suffering from emphysema and asthma, all of which added to her breathing problems. Some too still worried that her weight was out of control. New York critic Stephen Holden led on it in his
review of her final appearance at Rainbow and Stars in May 1998. Privately, Holden’s view was that Rosemary had become “morbidly obese” to the point that she was “scary looking.”
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He moderated his tone somewhat for his written piece, but still hoped that his “dangerously overweight” comment might shock Rosemary into “reality.” Instead, his comment was perceived as a hostile review and brought only a cold shoulder from her. It wasn’t, said those close to Rosemary, that she refused to recognize the issue; it was more a case that she had now lived it with it for so long that it had become part and parcel of her. The lady was not for turning.

Rosemary’s breathing problems increasingly drew comment from reviewers. Her weight and the fact that she was about to enter her 70s also had an impact on her gait and steadiness. Things were not helped when her knee problems returned. Now when she took the stage, she did so on Dante’s arm. Carefully positioning her by the piano (“which she would more or less cling to for the rest of the evening,” one unkind reviewer said),
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Dante would discreetly exit, returning at the end of show to escort her away. One night at the Hollywood Bowl, however, Dante stepped out of character and tossed in a dance step as he left the stage. It brought a burst of ire down on him from his new wife. “What the Hell do you think you are doing?” she yelled at him later. “This is
my
show.”
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The biggest threat to Rosemary’s health, however, came neither from her lungs nor from her weight. In February 1998, she was in Florida for a series of concerts as part of the Pilot Pen Song Festival when she began to suffer headaches and a fever. The decision was made to return to New York by road, a 24-hour trip in a limo during which time, her condition steadily deteriorated. By the time she arrived, her temperature had reached 101 and she was both unsteady on her feet and incoherent. She was admitted to Lenox Hill hospital on February 13. Within a day, her temperature had reached 107 and she had slipped into a coma where she would remain for three days. Doctors initially diagnosed viral meningitis but struggled to identify the precise strain of the disease. Eventually, they concluded that Rosemary had encephalitis—inflammation of the brain itself rather than the surrounding membranes—probably caused by a mosquito bite in Florida. She was placed on a ventilator and put under an ice blanket but beyond that, doctors said they could do nothing but let nature take its course. They told her immediate family that her chances were 50-50 at best. After a tense few days during which the family imposed a news blackout on Rosemary’s condition, she gradually began to recover. Nick Clooney recalled the moment that his sister emerged from her period of unconsciousness. She was awake but “starry eyed and tubed up,” he said. “This is the greatest moment of my life,” he told her. “I can say any damn thing I want and you
can’t say a single word.” Rosemary, he said, laughed so hard that she spat the breathing tube out of her mouth. “That was when I knew she was going to be okay,” he said.

Rosemary later recalled the vivid and bizarre dreams she had when she had been unconscious, and by the time she returned to the stage in May 1998 for what would be her last appearance at Rainbow and Stars (it closed later that year), her near-death experience had given her a new topic to add to her onstage repartee. “If you’re going to go, try going into a coma first,” she told the audience, going on to outline some of the wacky dreams she had experienced. Moving on from Rainbows to Carnegie Hall for a booking she had been due to fulfill the day she fell ill, Rosemary kept the same theme. “I am 108 days late” she told that audience. Her appearance at her favorite New York venues coincided with another celebration. On May 23, 1998, Rosemary celebrated her 70th birthday, a milestone that she embraced unwillingly. While never one to conceal her age, she had little enthusiasm for getting old. Reflecting with Jonathan Schwartz in a radio interview about how she had forgotten the words to “Our Love Is Here to Stay” at Carnegie Hall the previous year, she eschewed any idea that age might be an excuse. “Senior moment? Dumb moment more like. I hate it,” she said.
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Concord Records released a celebratory CD that comprised mainly reissues from earlier recordings, although Rosemary recorded two new tracks. These included James Taylor’s “Secret O’ Life” which became one of her favorite numbers. Allen Sviridoff had been quick to exploit Concord’s enthusiasm for Rosemary’s birthday because it brought Rosemary a healthy advance check on sales and required her to work for only one day to record the new tracks. His idea for a cover with “70” in big numbers—plus handouts for the concerts too—scored less well with his client. “The CD had the biggest damn ‘70’ you’ve ever seen in your life,” Rosemary said. “It could have been anybody recording it. If you can find ‘Rosemary Clooney’ on there, good luck. I thought the 70 would be a little discreet thing in the corner.”
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As well as the birthday album, Rosemary also had another new CD to promote during the summer of 1998.
At Long Last
united her with the Count Basie Band, a project that Allen Sviridoff had been seeking to bring about almost for as long as he had represented Rosemary. Indeed he had first discussed the idea with Basie himself, not long before the pianist’s death in 1984. When it finally came to fruition, it remained a troubled project. Scheduling problems meant that while the band was preparing for the session in California, Rosemary was working in Cincinnati. She had to listen to and approve the tempos over a telephone line. “Not ideal,” admitted Sviridoff. Because of Rosemary’s illness, the final edits to her vocals
could not be completed until she had recovered in June 1998. The result was an adequate album, but with Rosemary’s voice sounding thinner than on any other session to date, it served only to highlight the seemingly irreversible vocal decline. The process continued into her next album.
Brazil
saw Rosemary combine with guitarist John Pizzarelli on a set of Latin rhythms, authentically styled and benefiting from some outstanding vocal arrangements by Earl Brown. Nevertheless, her vocals fell a long way short of the standards she had set earlier in the decade.

Back to full health, Rosemary appeared at the Hollywood Bowl in July 1998 along with the Basie Band for an evening that Don Heckman in the
Los Angeles Times
called “timeless music-making.” One track from the album, “In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning” took on an unintended meaning with the passing of Frank Sinatra a few weeks before. Rosemary used it to end the concert in a note of homage to a singer who had influenced so much of her phrasing and lyrical interpretation. Three months later, Rosemary herself was the recipient of lavish tributes at a gala evening at the Beverly Hilton Hotel when she received the prestigious Ella Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society of Singers. Nephew George presented the award. “My aunt has had a pretty amazing year,” he said. “She celebrated 50 years in show business this year [
sic
] and she scared the hell out of us with a bout of meningitis. She married a guy she had been dating for 25 years. I sent her a note and said, ‘What’s the hurry? You should check him out.’ She sent me a note, joking ‘I’m pregnant.’ My aunt’s a class act and the most talented singer I’ve ever seen.”
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Anniversaries continued to dominate Rosemary’s schedule during the summer of 1998 with the centenary of the birth of George Gershwin. Her friendship with Ira and her more recent association with Gershwin disciple Michael Feinstein meant that Rosemary was the most obvious choice for any promoter looking to cash in on the anniversary. She teamed with Feinstein for a show at Harrah’s in Vegas in August and then headlined herself in “Fascinating Rhythm: 100 Years of George Gershwin” at the Masonic Auditorium in San Francisco in November. A possibly over-loyal critic Philip Elwood said that her performance was “marvelous, a delightful dozen-song set of mostly Gershwin, sensibly structured, with Clooney’s inimitable, informal commentary linking the selections together. Her voice is strong and melodic; she’s sustaining notes as in younger days, having kicked her smoking habit in recent years, and her timing is impeccable.”
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The winter of 1998–99 found Rosemary busy recording her
Brazil
album, guesting on
Sesame Street
, and singing with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra in Boettcher Hall, Denver. One thing was missing, however. With the expiration of its lease, Rainbow and Stars had closed its doors for
the last time in December 1998. Making money from vintage pop was a difficult challenge, as confirmed by the almost simultaneous demise of middle-of-the-road New York radio station WQEW. Rosemary had regularly appeared on it with Jonathan Schwartz, but now its spot on the dial went to a Disney-sponsored children’s station. The closure of Rainbow and Stars left Rosemary distraught. Venues such as Carnegie Hall were always open to her but there was nowhere else that Allen Sviridoff could see that would offer the intimacy of the room at the top of the Rock. A solution arrived via Rosemary’s close friend, Michael Feinstein, who by this time, was also managed by Sviridoff. Feinstein and Sviridoff had discussed the idea of creating a nightclub that would bear Feinstein’s name, and after considering several different locations, Sviridoff came up with the Loews Regency Hotel as a potential venue. He took the idea to Sherrie Laveroni, a Loews Executive, and the new club—“Feinstein’s at the Regency”—opened for business on October 5, 1999, with Rosemary as the main attraction. “I was thrilled for Rosemary to open the room,” Feinstein recalled.
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Stephen Holden was there to witness her first night. “Blunt, jolly and loquacious, she projects the warmth of a den mother opening her arms to her flock,” he wrote. “When she sings, with perfect enunciation, a casually swinging authority and a sound that still conveys a flavor of spring flowers, you’re less aware of technique and interpretation than of a life poured directly into song.”
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Rosemary would headline at the new club on three more occasions during the next two years, and while she never lost her affection for Rainbow and Stars, Feinstein’s became her final New York home.

Rosemary moved on from the new club to begin the promotion of her second autobiography.
Girl Singer
, co-written with author Joan Barthel, inevitably covered much of the same ground as
This for Remembrance
but offered a more balanced and less sensationalist account of Rosemary’s life. Barthel’s writing skillfully recreated the open, no-holds-barred style of Rosemary on stage and television. Concord issued a double CD, again largely comprised of previously issued tracks, using the same title and cover illustration as the book. Rosemary worked hard at publicizing the book on TV and at book signings, but though the reviews were generally favorable, sales were disappointing, barely justifying the significant advance that she had received from the publisher. Allen Sviridoff attributed the poor sales to inadequate marketing but others were less surprised. Stephen Holden said that the book had “nothing new in it,”
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while Michael Feinstein’s view was that the book was, like its predecessor, too subjective. “It’s as she remembered it; not necessarily the truth,” he said.
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Rosemary celebrated the new Millennium with a concert in Tucson, in tandem with Feinstein, on New Year’s Eve, 1999. As she moved into a new
century, the self-styled “old broad” seemed to be like Jerome Kern’s “Ol’ Man River”—she just kept rolling along. Inevitably, there were more concessions to age. She had taken now to sitting down for some of her performances, borrowing a line in justification from cabaret icon, Mabel Mercer. “I’ll stand as long as I can,” she told audiences, “and when I can’t stand, I’ll sit.” She also now openly took a lyric sheet on stage with her, and eventually, a lectern to hold it. “Do you forget many lyrics?” Terry Gross had asked her some years before. “I’m 68, darling,” had been Rosemary’s wry reply.
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Her onstage patter also expanded, offering more time for recovery between songs but also drawing on an ever-increasing repertoire of stories about her grandchildren. During a concert performance in Chicago in March 2000, she told a story about her grandson Harry, son of her daughter, Monsita. Driven to distraction by the constant fighting between her sons, Monsita had admonished them, saying that she “couldn’t stand the raging hormones anymore.” “Does Grammy have raging hormones?” Harry had asked. Trying to conceal her laughter, Monsita said she didn’t think so, but why did he ask. “Cause that’s how she yells at Papa [Dante] all the time!!” said Harry.

Other concert dates during 2000 included familiar venues such as Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco and the Hollywood Bowl in the midst of another busy year of touring. She also returned to Maysville, for the Second Annual Rosemary Clooney Music Festival, seeking to raise funds for the restoration of the Russell Theater that had hosted her first movie premiere in 1953. May and December saw her back at Feinstein’s in New York, the latter for
Rosemary Clooney’s White Christmas Party
which she also took to Salt Lake City that year. Christmas Day saw her singing on the
Today
program, offering two songs, “White Christmas” and “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” as her family gathered for their traditionally expansive holiday celebration at North Roxbury. There was, it seemed, much to look forward to in the coming year. Another album was planned, with a new band that offered yet another change of direction, and there was talk too of performances in England and her ancestral home, Ireland. It would be the first time she had been back there since performing with Bing in Dublin in 1976. What nobody realized was that, as the Christmas bells rang out on North Roxbury, dark clouds were forming over the horizon. Christmas 2000 would be the last one that would be merry and bright.