This documentary showed up a few weeks back (thanks mom!):
This is the Rose Marie documentary.
The filmmaker wanted to make a documentary about the history of show-business, and after asking around, it became clear that his subject should just be Rose Marie, a performer who's own story essentially is the history of show-biz.
I remembered her from "The Dick van Dyke Show:"
Oh my goodness how much I didn't know!
She was the daughter of a goomara!
One of Al Capone's wet works guys had his girl on the side, and she was a nightclub singer. He knocked her up twice, and named those kids the same names he had with his wife. The daughter, Rosemarie, showed a knack for singing: as a kid she was called up on stage one evening and sang a duet with the lady performing that night. That started her nightclub career as "Baby Rose Marie."
She did the occasional voice work for Betty Boop and was sent out by her father on the last vestiges of what accounted for the vaudeville circuit. They had her performing all over the place. Her dad knew a cash-full opportunity when he saw one.
She'd perform for gangsters at their homes and newly opened casinos in the Vegas desert. They always treated her wonderfully, like a daughter rather than a sexual object.
She fell deeply in love to a well known and respected trumpet player, and they lived together until his death, something she still hadn't really gotten over decades later.
She never got the same shine that, say, Betty White has received, which hasn't been fair, but that's how things work out sometimes.
She passed last December, but had been concerned for work for as long as she wasn't working, as she was never satisfied unless on a gig.
For a look at the ever morphing world of American entertainment, check out this movie.
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