Mary Tyler at the beginning

Rose Marie Mazetta, known better as Rose Marie, a veteran of vaudeville and as one of its last surviving stars,
began performing at the age of three, her career included film, radio, records, theater, night clubs and television,
and was a radio star at the age of five who went on to do a number of films, passed away today at the age of 94
in Van Nuys, north of Los Angeles.

Rose Marie performed as an accomplished and popular singer in the waning days of Vaudeville at the age of ten:


Rose-Marie-1930.jpg



Best remembered in her role as Sally Rogers on The Dick Van Dyke Show, one of televisions finest
comedies ever, 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,” she was assisted in her career
by many members of organized crime, including Al Capone and Bugsy 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 Paramount films and shorts. She continued to appear in films through the mid-
1930s, making shorts and one feature picture, International House (1933), with W.C. Fields.

With the development of television, she began doing television in 1960 and was picked up for The
Dick Van Dyke Show in 1961.


Dick_Van_Dyke_Show_main_cast_photo.jpg



Morey Amsterdam at left as Buddy Sorrell, known in real life as the “human joke machine”, was
recommended for the role by Rose Marie as soon as she had signed on to the series. He began working
in vaudeville as well, in 1922 as the straight man for his older brother’s jokes. He was a cellist, a skill
he used throughout his career. By 1924, he was working in a speakeasy operated by Al Capone.

Richard Deacon and Rose Marie were good friends and Rose and Morey often performed together including
just a few months right before Morey’s passing away in 1996.

It’ll be one year this January 25th that Mary Tyler Moore passed away.
 

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