59 Facts About Cass Elliot

Ellen Naomi Cohen, known professionally as Cass Elliot, was an American singer.

Cass Elliot was known as "Mama Cass", a name she reportedly disliked.

Cass Elliot received the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Performance for "Monday, Monday".

Cass Elliot's family was subject to significant financial stresses and uncertainties during her childhood years.

Cass Elliot's father, involved in several business ventures, ultimately succeeded through the development of a lunch wagon in Baltimore that provided meals to construction workers.

Cass Elliot had a brother, Joseph, and a younger sister, Leah, who became a singer and recording artist.

When Cass Elliot's family returned to Baltimore, she attended Forest Park High School in Dorchester.

Cass Elliot won a small part in the play The Boy Friend, a summer stock production at the Hilltop Theatre in Owings Mills, Maryland in 1959 under the name Ellen Cohen.

Cass Elliot left high school shortly before graduation and moved to New York City to further her acting career.

Cass Elliot sometimes sang while working as a cloakroom attendant at The Showplace in Greenwich Village, but she did not pursue a singing career until she moved to the Washington, DC, area to attend American University.

America's folk music scene was on the rise when Cass Elliot met banjoist and singer Tim Rose and singer John Brown, and the three began performing as the Triumvirate.

Cass Elliot's first recording with the Big 3 was "Winken, Blinken, and Nod", released by FM Records in 1963.

In 1965, Doherty persuaded Phillips that Cass Elliot should join the group, which she did while the group members and she were vacationing in the Virgin Islands.

Cass Elliot confirmed the story in a 1968 interview with Rolling Stone, saying:.

Cass Elliot was in love with Doherty and was displeased when he told her of the affair.

Doherty has said that Cass Elliot once proposed to him, but that he was so stoned at the time that he could not even respond.

Cass Elliot was known for her sense of humor and optimism, and was considered by many to be the most charismatic member of the group.

Cass Elliot performed the solo "Dream a Little Dream of Me", which the group recorded in 1968 after learning about the death of Fabian Andre, one of the men who co-wrote it, whom Michelle Phillips had met years earlier.

In October 1968, Cass Elliot made her live solo debut headlining in Las Vegas at Caesars Palace, scheduled for a three-week engagement at $40,000 per week with two shows per night.

Cass Elliot was confined to her bed for three weeks before the first performance while the musical director, band, and production supervisor attempted to put together a show in her absence.

Cass Elliot was scheduled to rehearse for a full three days before the show opened, but she managed to get through only part of one run-through with the band before saying that she was losing her voice.

Cass Elliot skipped the remainder of rehearsals and drank tea and lemon, hoping to recover and pull herself together for opening night.

Cass Elliot then sang "Dream a Little Dream of Me" and left the stage as the audience applauded half-heartedly.

Cass Elliot returned later that night to perform the second show, but her voice was worse, and many of the audience noisily walked out.

The Los Angeles Free Press called it "an embarrassing drag", while Newsweek compared it to the Titanic disaster: "Like some great ocean liner embarking on an ill-fated maiden voyage, Mama Cass Elliot slid down the waves and sank to the bottom".

Eddi Fiegel wrote in the biography Dream a Little Dream of Me that Cass Elliot later admitted to a boyfriend that she had injected heroin immediately before going on stage.

Cass Elliot was a regular guest on TV talk shows and variety shows in the early 1970s, including The Mike Douglas Show, The Andy Williams Show, Hollywood Squares, The Johnny Cash Show, The Ray Stevens Show, The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, and The Carol Burnett Show, and was a guest panelist for a week on the game show Match Game '73.

Cass Elliot guest-hosted for Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show and appeared as a guest on the show 13 other times.

Cass Elliot appeared on and co-hosted The Music Scene on ABC and was featured on the first The Midnight Special on NBC.

Cass Elliot performed the title song "The Good Times Are Comin" during the opening sequence of the 1970 film Monte Walsh, starring Lee Marvin and Jack Palance.

In 1970, Elliot was signed to RCA Records; her first album for RCA, Cass Elliot, was issued in January, 1972.

However, all of Cass Elliot's solos were deleted from the syndicated edit.

In 1973, Cass Elliot performed in Saga of Sonora, a TV music-comedy-Western special with Jill St John, Vince Edwards, Zero Mostel, and Lesley Ann Warren.

Cass Elliot sang the jingle "Hurry on down to Hardee's, where the burgers are charco-broiled" for Hardee's advertisements.

Cass Elliot had a featured role in the movie Pufnstuf and made guest appearances on TV's The New Scooby-Doo Movies; Young Dr Kildare; Love, American Style; and The Red Skelton Show; among others.

In 1973, Cass Elliot hired as her manager Allan Carr, who was managing the careers of Tony Curtis, Ann-Margret, and Peter Sellers.

Carr felt Cass Elliot needed to leave pop and rock music and head into the cabaret circuit, so a show was put together comprising old standards along with a few new songs written for her by friends.

Cass Elliot felt ready to tackle Las Vegas and premiered at the Flamingo.

Cass Elliot provided the voice for her appearance on the 1973 episode of The New Scooby-Doo Movies, "The Haunted Candy Factory".

Cass Elliot made an international phone call to Michelle Phillips, during which Elliot cried from happiness over her success at the Palladium, as Phillips has stated in numerous interviews.

Cass Elliot first attended the 31st birthday party of Mick Jagger at his home on Tite Street in Chelsea, London.

Cass Elliot seemed in high spirits but appeared physically exhausted and sick.

Later that night, several hours after Cass Elliot left Jack Martin's cocktail party, she died in her sleep at age 32.

Cass Elliot did not die from choking on a ham sandwich, as has been alleged.

Cass Elliot's body was cremated at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles, California.

Cass Elliot's ashes were later buried in Mount Sinai Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles.

Cass Elliot was married twice, the first time in 1963 to Jim Hendricks, her groupmate in the Big 3 and the Mugwumps.

In 1971, Cass Elliot married journalist Donald von Wiedenman, heir to a Bavarian barony.

Cass Elliot gave birth to a daughter, Owen Vanessa Cass Elliot-Kugell, on April 26,1967.

Cass Elliot-Kugell grew up to become a singer and toured with Beach Boys member Al Jardine.

Cass Elliot's paternity was not publicly revealed until his 2008 death.

In 1967, while staying in London, Cass Elliot was prosecuted for stealing bed linen from a hotel where she and her bandmates had stayed on an earlier visit.

Cass Elliot denied responsibility, and the case was brought before the West London magistrates' court, where the charges against her were dismissed in the absence of any evidence.

Cass Elliot said she had kept quiet because of the way she had been treated in police custody.

Cass Elliot received the 2,735th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on October 3,2022.

Cass Elliot was portrayed by Shannon Lee in the Bruce Lee Biopic Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story.

Cass Elliot was portrayed by Rachel Redleaf in the 2019 film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

Cass Elliot's recording of "Make Your Own Kind of Music" is featured prominently in several episodes of seasons two and three of Lost as well as season eight, episodes two and nine of Dexter.

Cass Elliot's recording of "It's Getting Better" is featured in a season-four episode of Lost.