Rose Marie Dies After 91-Year Showbiz Career

She was best known for Dick Van Dyke Show role
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Dec 29, 2017 12:05 AM CST
Rose Marie Dies After 91-Year Showbiz Career
In this April 11, 1963 photo, standing from left, Morey Amsterdam, Rose Marie, and Richard Deacon, and Dick Van Dyke, right, gather around Carl Reiner during a rehearsal of an episode for the "The Dick Van Dyke Show." .   (AP Photo/David F. Smith, File)

Rose Marie, the wisecracking Sally Rogers of The Dick Van Dyke Show and a show business lifer who began as a bobbed-hair child star in vaudeville and worked for nearly a century in theater, radio, TV, and movies, died Thursday, the AP reports. She was 94. Marie had been resting in bed at her Los Angeles-area home when a caretaker found she had stopped breathing, said family spokesman Harlan Boll. "Heaven just got a whole lot funnier" was the tribute posted atop a photo of Marie on her website. Marie, a child star of the 1920s and 1930s, often claimed she had the longest career in entertainment history. It spanned some 90 years, with co-stars ranging from WC Fields to Garfield the cat, and the highlight for many was the classic '60s sitcom that featured Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore.

She was born Rose Marie Mazetta in New York City on Aug. 15, 1923. When she was 3, her mother entered her in an amateur talent contest in Atlantic City as Baby Rose Marie. She won the contest, began singing on radio, and was a hit on The Rudy Vallee Hour. NBC gave her a seven-year contract and her own show. In 1946 she married Bobby Guy, a trumpeter in Kay Kyser's band. They had a daughter, Georgiana, in 1947. She received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2001. In 2017, she extended her reach to social media, her Twitter feed quickly attracting more than 100,000 followers. "I was asked what I wanted my legacy to be," she wrote in one tweet. "My answer, 'That I was good at my job & loved every minute of it.' I wish that for everyone."

(More obituary stories.)

Get the news faster.
Tap to install our app.
X
Install the Newser News app
in two easy steps:
1. Tap in your navigation bar.
2. Tap to Add to Home Screen.

X