Datalounge's model for Momma (and perhaps her mussy): Rosemary Clooney

She really wasn't all that fat.

She isn't wearing her merry widow.

Botch-a-Me

Mambo Italiano

Rosemary Clooney - Come On-A My House

I know about her nervous breakdown, but how about her artistry?

Some people are just lucky and don't gain weight in their faces, but as R1 notes, she really isn't that fat in that commercial. However, she was huge by the time she was in that episode of ER.

[quote]she really isn't that fat in that commercial

Look again. She is utterly huge in that commercial.

Like a walking refrigerator — that caftan is practically clinging to her back fat and gut.

She had to choose between her face and her ass, and she chose her face.

[quote]She had to choose between her face and her ass, and she chose her face.

And what other 20 faces?

Were the selectees notified?

Sondra Locke IS Rosemary!

Extensive thread here. Post less; search more.

Get a load of the control freak at r12.

I'm not interested in the bitch's life story, R12.

I'm interested in her massive caftan-wearing period—and whether she is, in fact, who every Datalounger envisions when they reference Momma—inspired by an IG post made five hours ago.

OP = Martha from Little Reindeer l, posting from her iPhone🦌

I recently watched all of her movies, even the horrible "Here Come The Girls" and damn she was cute and sexy. Beautiful eyes, sexy body and an adorable, mischievous smile. George doesn't look like his aunt at all.

Queerty thinks she was bisexual: "Yes, the holiday season has arrived, and of cinematic fare, White Christmas will no doubt land on the screening list of many trying to get into the holiday spirit. Yet the great unsung (pardon the phrase) hero of this stalwart musical isn’t bisexual actress Rosemary Clooney, possibly queer star Danny Kaye, or even the unforgettable title song. It’s Bing Crosby’s steely blue eyes, tight bod and sensual voice that keep us coming again and again. As it were."

I can totally imagine her having sex with multiple men and women when José was on his trips. She realized he was cheating on her, so why not do the same?

One of the greats, a huge talent for natural singing and phrasing, and also an incredible presence. What happened to her career was not her fault, but the music suddenly shifted far away from her style, when she was still a young woman.

Yeah, she was a very talented singer.

Good for her, doing commercials like Carol Brady (Flo Henderson). I'm sure it paid some bills.

And I agree - she didn't look super overweight in that clip.

I do remember Coronet paper products. WHET?

Clooney had an interesting second act to her career in the 1970s, when she toured with Margaret Whiting, Helen O'Connell and Rose Marie in a group act called [bold]4 Girls 4.[/bold] The club dates were so successful they basically did it off and on for a decade or so.

I think it’s so great they all got an extra decade of being wanted. It’s hard for performers as they age and fall out of favor.

[italic]”Each woman does her own familiar set--Margaret includes My Ideal and Tree in the Meadow, Rose Marie does a comedy stint with a few songs, Helen sings Green Eyes and Tangerine, Rosemary does Come On-a My House and Tenderly--mixed with a few new numbers like Billy Joel's Just The Way You Are, then the four join for a few verses of Together at the end.”

those coronet commercials always made me as a little galling dance around the living room.

Hollywood couldn't figure out how to shoe horn her into their system. she would have had a better career twenty years later

Rosemary Clooney on Celebrity Bowling. What year was this? Her hair is horrible but I like her personality. She seemed like a fun person to be around.

R16 Sorry but Bing Crosby's "tight bod" has never been what brings me back year after year to White Christmas. And in one scene (dressing room) you can clearly see he has a girdle on under his T-shirt.

Rosie is one of my favorites. Would have been a bigger movie star if she hadn't had 5 kids in a row following White Christmas. Good actress.

Paramount was thinking of casting Vivian Blaine (!) in the film until Crosby said why not Clooney? (It's in a letter from him to the studio.)

Rosemary said in a Tom Snyder interview I watched recently that she was up for the Eva Marie Saint role in On The Waterfront.

R23 I posted that article because the author says that Rosemary Clooney is bisexual. I wanted to know where he got that information.

R24 There were/are rumors that her close friendship with Marlene Dietrich was more than just a friendship. I doubt it. I don't think anyone can claim for a fact RC was bisexual, I don't get why that author did.

[quote]Rosemary Clooney on Celebrity Bowling. What year was this?

1971

[quote]How did she get so morbidly obese that she had to wear tents, yet her face looked relatively normal?

She chose her face over her ass.

I don't understand the reference to Momma. Can someone explain? Clearly not the 1970s comic strip by Mel Lazarus.

How did she throw her voice like that? 3 second delay!

I thought George was her lacky—who’s the dimb bulb driving her shopping crt?

R19 Saw this in summer theater.

R19 They also swapped out singers and put other in.

*others

She had asthma. She's doing all she can in those commercials to manifest excitement about the product.

Those last years of Clooney's Concord "jazz" albums, with only ten or so songs each on them and only 30 minutes long, where she sings 32 bars of an old standard and then the band plays for four minutes and she comes in for the tag at the end..."On the Road Again" is the last good one. From "Do You Miss New York" on, she'd gotten so fat that her breathing was affected and she'd take four or five breaths to do what she used to do in one.

An old musician joke from the days when she was playing Rainbow and Stars was she had a bright yellow dress made to wear for the show, but the first time the band saw it was opening night. She strides out at the top of the show to start singing and the trumpet player (who had Tourette's, if you believe these apocryphal stories) yelled out involuntarily, "Taxi!"

Both Rosemary and Margaret Whiting take more than a little bit of time to write in their books about how they disliked Helen O'Connell. Rose Marie didn't like her either, it's in the documentary. Helen started out in 4 Girls 4 wearing a pastel print dress while the other ladies glammed up and wore sequins. Someone told her she looked like she was in her pajamas and she changed what she wore.

O'Connell eventually married Frank DeVol. The interesting part of her story is that she sat out what would have been her prime work years as a girl singer...because she got married. She was already a star at age 23 when she married in 1943, and didn't work again till 1951 after her first divorce. She went from thing to thing, often as a nostalgia act, but never quite got back to where she'd been during her Dorsey band years. She must not have been able to act or dance, as her tv work was variety shows and hosting and chat shows. No series, and she didn't do any musical theatre.

She cohosted Miss Universe for several years….how dare you!

@3:42

R34 ...and was nominated for an Emmy for that.

Not all singers become actors or actresses, I don't think that's unusual.

R25 In her book Girl Singer, she says that Frank Sinatra was jealous of her friendship with Ava Gardner.

Ava was bisexual. Rosemary wrote "Ava was so beautiful it hurt your eyes just looking at her."

Saying Ava Gardner was gorgeous is no indicator Rosemary liked chicks.

True R37 but she did write in her book that Ava would go to her concerts which made her husband Frank Sinatra ridiculously jealous. Why would he be jealous of that? She also said that José Ferrer didn't like her relationship with Marlene Dietrich. Little clues here and there.

^^R36^^

I miss the seventies, when Rosemary Clooney wafting through a grocery store aisle in a frilly caftan was a soothing presence.

She was asked by Diane Sawyer in a 1992 interview if she wanted to lose weight and Rosemary responded that she just couldn't give up tacos. She'd given up so much but the tacos were staying.

She could have lost weight with tacos in her diet. Calories in, calories out.

The Kentucky DNA was dominant.

R24- Well her nephew George is homosexual.

She could have dined on Marlene’s pink taco without blowing her diet - -