Rose Marie
Mazetta (born August 15,
1923), known professionally as Rose Marie, is an American actress. As a
child performer she had a successful singing career as Baby Rose Marie. A veteran of
vaudeville and one of its last surviving stars, her 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 The Doris Day Show
and was also a frequent panelist on the game show Hollywood Squares.
Rose Marie in 1970
Rose Marie Mazetta was born inNew 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, 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. At her height of fame as a child singer, from late 1929 to 1934, she had her own radio show, made numerous records, and was featured in a number ofParamount 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 forParamount .
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
and the band were 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.
Her recording "Say That You Were Teasing Me" (b/w "Take a Picture of the Moon; Victor 22960) also featuredHenderson 's
orchestra and was a national Top 20 hit, peaking at #19 in May 1932. According to Joel
Whitburn, Rose Marie is the only pre-World War II hitmaker still living as of
2016.
In the 1960–61 season, Rose Marie costarred 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 costarred in two seasons (1969–1971) of CBS's The Doris Day Show as Doris Martin's friend and coworker, Myrna Gibbons. She also appeared in two episodes of the NBC series The Monkees in the mid-1960s. She later had a semiregular 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 appeared as Roy Biggins's domineering mother, Eleanor "Bluto" Biggins, in an episode of the television series Wings. Rose Marie and Morey Amsterdam appeared together in an October 1993 episode of Herman's Head and guest-starred in a February 1996 episode of the NBC sitcom Caroline in the City, shortly beforeAmsterdam '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.
Rose Marie in 1970
Early Years
Rose Marie Mazetta was born in
She performed at the opening night of the Flamingo Hotel, which was built by Siegel. At her height of fame as a child singer, from late 1929 to 1934, she had her own radio show, made numerous records, and was featured in a number of
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
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,
Her recording "Say That You Were Teasing Me" (b/w "Take a Picture of the Moon; Victor 22960) also featured
Television
In the 1960–61 season, Rose Marie costarred 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 costarred in two seasons (1969–1971) of CBS's The Doris Day Show as Doris Martin's friend and coworker, Myrna Gibbons. She also appeared in two episodes of the NBC series The Monkees in the mid-1960s. She later had a semiregular 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 appeared as Roy Biggins's domineering mother, Eleanor "Bluto" Biggins, in an episode of the television series Wings. Rose Marie and Morey Amsterdam appeared together in an October 1993 episode of Herman's Head and guest-starred in a February 1996 episode of the NBC sitcom Caroline in the City, shortly before
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.
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