Rose Marie is an American actress. As a child performer she had a successful singing career
as Baby Rose Marie. A veteran of vaudeville, Rose Marie's career includes film, records,
theater, night clubs and television. Her most famous role was television comedy writer Sally
Rogers on the CBS situation comedy The Dick Van Dyke Show. She later portrayed Myrna Gibbons
on The Doris Day Show and was also a frequent panelist on the game show Hollywood Squares.
Early years Rose Marie Mazetta was born in New York City,
New York, to Italian-American Frank Mazetta and Polish-American Stella Gluszcak.
At the age of three, she started performing under the name "Baby Rose Marie". At five,
she became a radio star on NBC and made a series of films. 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". According to her autobiography, Hold the Roses,
she was assisted in her career by many members of organized crime, including Al Capone and
Bugsy Siegel. She performed at the opening night of the
Flamingo Hotel, which was built by Siegel. At her height of fame as a child singer, she
had her own radio show, made numerous records, and was featured in a number of Paramount
films and shorts. In 1929, the five- or six-year-old singer
made a Vitaphone sound short titled "Baby Rose Marie the Child Wonder", now restored
and available in the Warner Bros. DVD set of The Jazz Singer. She continued to appear
in films through the mid-1930s, making shorts and a feature, International House with W.
C. Fields, for Paramount. Recordings
Between 1930 and 1938, she made 17 recordings; three of which were unissued. Her first issued
record, recorded on March 10, 1932, featured accompaniment by Fletcher Henderson's band,
one of the premier black jazz orchestras. According to "Hendersonia" the bio-discography
by Walter C. Allen, Henderson was in the Victor studios recording the four songs they were
intending to produce that day and were asked to accompany Baby Rose Marie, reading from
a stock arrangement.
Television In the 1960–1961 season, Rose Marie co-starred
with Shirley Bonne, Elaine Stritch, Jack Weston, Raymond Bailey and Stubby Kaye in the CBS
sitcom My Sister Eileen. She played Bertha, a friend of the Sherwood sisters: Ruth, a
magazine writer, played by Stritch, and Eileen, an aspiring actress, Bonne's role.
After five seasons of The Dick Van Dyke Show, Rose Marie co-starred in two seasons of CBS's
The Doris Day Show as Doris Martin's friend and co-worker, Myrna Gibbons. She also appeared
in two episodes of the NBC series The Monkees in the mid-1960s. She later had a semi-regular
seat in the upper center square on the original version of Hollywood Squares, alongside her
friend and longtime Dick Van Dyke co-star, Morey Amsterdam. She also appeared on both
the 1986 and 1998 syndicated revivals. In the early 1990s, she had a recurring role
as Frank Fontana's mother on the CBS sitcom Murphy Brown. She also appeared as Roy Biggins's
domineering mother, Eleanor "Bluto" Biggins, in an episode of the television series Wings.
Rose Marie and Morey Amsterdam guest-starred together in a February 1996 episode of the
NBC sitcom Caroline in the City, shortly before Amsterdam's death in October of that same
year. She appeared with the surviving Dick Van Dyke
Show cast members in a 2004 reunion special. Rose Marie was especially close to actor Richard
Deacon from that show, and offered him the suits left behind when her husband died in
1964, as the two men were of similar height and build.
Theater From 1977 to 1985, Rose Marie co-starred with
Rosemary Clooney, Helen O'Connell and Margaret Whiting in the musical revue 4 Girls 4, which
toured the United States and appeared on television several times.
She was the celebrity guest host of a comedy play Grandmas Rock!, written by Gordon Durich,
and originally broadcast on radio in 2010 on KVTA and KKZZ, and rebroadcast on KVTA
and KKZZ again in September 2012 in honor of National Grandparents Day. A CD of the
show was also produced, featuring audio clips from The Dick Van Dyke Show.
Autobiography In 2002, her autobiography Hold the Roses
was published by the University Press of Kentucky. Personal life
She was married to trumpeter Bobby Guy from 1946 until his death in 1964. The couple had
one daughter, Georgiana. Filmography
Feature films
Short subjects
Television
References
External links An interview with Rose Marie, March 2011
Rose Marie at the Internet Movie Database Rose Marie at the TCM Movie Database
Rose Marie interview video at the Archive of American Television
Interview with Rose Marie