Trivia of Rosemary Clooney

 Trivia of Rosemary Clooney (23 May 1928 - 29 June 2002)

*Rosemary was born and raised in Maysville, Kentucky.She was the eldest of five siblings that also included, Betty, Nick, Andy, and half-sister Gail Stone.In decades later, the street in Maysville where she was born and lived renamed in her honor.

*Before enter the Hollywood, Rosemary and her sister, Betty, performed together as a sister act.They sang in high school events, local TV appearances, and performing with a local bandleader. Once the sisters auditioned to sing with the Tony Pastor Band, a nationally known band leader, it looked like they had made it. For three years, Rosemary and Betty traveled across the country with the band and earned pretty good money — $125 a week.But Betty was getting tired of the traveling performer life and was ready to quit show business and head back home. However, Rosemary — who was considered to have the stronger voice — was offered a solo contract with Columbia Records.

*She disliked the song that jolted her to fame in 1951, "Come On-a My House,".The song was written by Armenian-American author William Saroyan and was offered to Rosemary Clooney.She was required to do an accent for the vocals.Rosemary thought it was silly and cloying and loathed the idea of putting on a fake accent. In her memoirs, Rosemary would write about how she despised "Come On-a My House."Columbia Records threatened to fire Clooney if she didn't perform the song, so she reluctantly agreed to go along with it. But only if she could use an Italian accent rather than an Armenian one "because it was the only kind of accent I knew."

*While an incredibly gifted singer and actress, Rosemary Clooney really wasn't a skilled dancer.This became an issue when she starred along with Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, and Vera Ellen in White Christmas (1954).Her other co-star, Vera-Ellen, was an expert dancer but not a talented singer. In a 2000 interview with The Christian Science Monitor, Clooney remembered her time on the set of White Christmas, wryly remarking, "So, here you have a singer who can't dance and a dancer who can't sing!".To solve this problem, Clooney was given only two brief moments of dancing in the film with the most basic of choreography that she could handle relatively easily without any trouble.

*Clooney was married twice to Puerto Rican movie star José Ferrer, 16 years her senior. Clooney first married Ferrer on July 13, 1953. Together, the couple had five children, including son named Miguel Ferrer who also became an actor. Clooney and Ferrer divorced for the first time in 1961.Clooney remarried Ferrer on November 22, 1964, in Los Angeles. However, the marriage again crumbled while Ferrer was carrying on an affair with the woman who would become his last wife, Stella Magee. The couple divorced again in 1967 after she found out about the affair.

*During 1960s, Rosemary had taken up campaigning for the Democratic Party and was a major supporter of Robert Kennedy in his bid for the presidency. She was at the Ambassador Hotel when Robert Kennedy was killed in 1968, only mere feet away from where he was shot. She flew with him to Los Angeles and sat in his car as he drove through the city. She was waiting for him at the Ambassador Hotel when the shots rang out.

*George Clooney is her nephew (he’s the son of Rosemary’s brother Nick Clooney).When Rosemary married dancer Dante DiPaolo in 1997, her nephew George Clooney, according to rumor, did not attend, as he "did not wish to steal away the spotlight" on his aunt's special day.