News

Actions

Showbiz legend Rose Marie dead at 94

Posted at 9:50 PM, Dec 28, 2017
and last updated 2017-12-28 21:52:53-05

Broadway and television actress Rose Marie, best known for her role as Sally Rogers on “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” died Thursday, her publicist said, citing her family. She was 94.

Born Rose Marie Mazetta on August 15, 1923, in New York, she began performing at age 3 by winning an amateur contest that took her to Atlantic City, New Jersey. She soon began performing on network radio.

During a career that spanned nine decades, Rose Marie — who went only by her first name professionally — was also famous for appearing for years on the game show “The Hollywood Squares,” which featured celebrities sitting in boxes on a life-size tic-tac-toe board. The website IMDb says she appeared in 629 of the show’s episodes.

Rose Marie rubbed shoulders with some of the most famous names in show business and beyond. She sang for Presidents Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, and Franklin D. Roosevelt and was hired by Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegal to perform in Las Vegas along with Jimmy Durante, her publicist said. She also toured the night club circuit with Rosemary Clooney.

On “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” Rose Marie acted with the TV show’s eponymous star and Mary Tyler Moore. After five seasons, she moved on to “The Doris Day Show.”

Rose Marie starred in several of the earliest talking films, such as “Baby Rose Marie,” according to The National Museum of American History. She donated several personal items to the museum, including her trademark black hair bow and shoes from her radio days.

Rose Marie is survived by her daughter, Georgiana Marie Guy, from her marriage to the late Bobby Guy, the first trumpeter for the NBC orchestra on “The Tonight Show.”