Cass Elliot, also known as Mama Cass, was an American singer and member of The Mamas
& the Papas.
After the group broke up, she released five solo albums.
In 1998, Elliot, John Phillips, Denny Doherty, and Michelle Phillips were inducted into the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for their work as The Mamas & the Papas.
Early life Elliot was born Ellen Naomi Cohen to Philip
and Bess Cohen in Baltimore, Maryland.
She had a younger sister, Leah, who also became a singer as a member of the Coyote Sisters.
The Cohens later moved to Alexandria, Virginia, a suburb of Washington, D.C..
She adopted the name "Cass" in high school—possibly, as Denny Doherty tells it, borrowing it from
the actress Peggy Cass, but in any case, it was "Cass", not "Cassandra."
She assumed the surname Elliot sometime later, in memory of a friend who had died.
While still attending George Washington High School, she became interested in acting and
was cast in a school production of the play The Boy Friend.
She left high school shortly before graduation and moved to New York City to further her
acting career.
She toured in the musical The Music Man, but lost the part of Miss Marmelstein in I Can
Get It for You Wholesale to Barbra Streisand in 1962.
Early career
While working as a cloakroom attendant at The Showplace in Greenwich Village in New
York, Elliot would sometimes sing, but it wasn't until she returned to the Washington
D.C. area, to attend American University that she began to pursue a singing career.
As America's folk music scene was on the rise, Elliot met banjoist and singer Tim Rose and
singer John Brown, and the three began performing as The Triumvirate.
In 1963, James Hendricks replaced Brown and the trio was renamed The Big 3.
Elliot's first recording with The Big 3 was Winkin', Blinkin' and Nod, released by FM
Records in 1963.
In 1964, the group appeared on an "open mike" night at The Bitter End in Greenwich Village,
billed as "Cass Elliot and the Big 3", followed onstage by folksinger Jim Fosso and bluegrass
banjoist Eric Weissberg.
When Tim Rose left The Big 3 in 1964, Elliot and Hendricks teamed with Canadians Zal Yanovsky
and Denny Doherty to form The Mugwumps.
This group lasted eight months, after which Cass performed as a solo act for a while.
In the meantime, Yanovsky and John Sebastian co-founded The Lovin' Spoonful, while Doherty
joined The New Journeymen, a group that also included John Phillips and his wife, Michelle.
In 1965, Doherty convinced Phillips that Elliot should join the group, which she did while
she and the group members were vacationing in the Virgin Islands.
A popular legend about Elliot is that her vocal range was improved by three notes after
she was hit on the head by some copper tubing while walking through a construction site
behind the bar where The New Journeymen were playing in the Virgin Islands.
Elliot herself confirmed the story in a 1968 interview with Rolling Stone magazine, saying,
It's true, I did get hit on the head by a pipe that fell down and my range was increased
by three notes.
They were tearing this club apart in the islands, revamping it, putting in a dance floor.
Workmen dropped a thin metal plumbing pipe and it hit me on the head and knocked me to
the ground.
I had a concussion and went to the hospital.
I had a bad headache for about two weeks and all of a sudden I was singing higher.
It's true.
Honest to God.
However, friends later said that the pipe story was a less embarrassing explanation
for why John Phillips had kept her out of the group for so long, the real reason being
that he considered her too fat.
The Mamas & the Papas With two female members, The New Journeymen
needed a new name.
According to Doherty, Elliot had the inspiration for the band's new name; as written on his
website:
We're all just lying around vegging out watching TV and discussing names for the group.
The New Journeymen was not a handle that was going to hang on this outfit.
John was pushing for The Magic Cyrcle.
Eech, but none of us could come up with anything better, then we switch the channel and, hey,
it's the Hells Angels on the Carson show...
And the first thing we hear is: "Now hold on there, Hoss.
Some people call our women cheap, but we just call them our Mamas."
Cass jumped up: "Yeah!
I want to be a Mama."
And Michelle is going: "We're the Mamas!
We're the Mamas!"
OK.
I look at John.
He's looking at me going: "The Papas?"
Problem solved.
A toast!
To The Mamas and the Papas.
Well, after many, many toasts, Cass and John are passed out."
Doherty also said that the occasion marked the beginning of his affair with Michelle
Phillips.
Elliot, who was in love with Doherty, was displeased when he told her of the affair.
Doherty has said that Elliot once proposed to him, but that he was so stoned at the time,
he could not even respond.
Elliot, known for her sense of humor and optimism, was considered by some to be the most charismatic
member of the group.
Her powerful, distinctive voice was a large factor in their success.
She is best remembered for her vocals on the group's hits "California Dreamin'," "Monday
Monday," and "Words of Love," and particularly for the solo "Dream a Little Dream of Me,"
which the group recorded in 1968 after learning about the death of Fabian Andre, one of the
men who co-wrote it, whom Michelle Phillips had met years earlier.
Elliot's version is noteworthy for its contemplative pace, whereas almost all earlier recordings
of "Dream a Little Dream of Me" had been up-tempo versions—the song having actually been written
in 1931 as a dance tune for the nightclubs of the day.
The Mamas & the Papas continued to record to meet the terms of their record contract.
Their final album was released in 1971.
Solo career
After the breakup of The Mamas & the Papas, Elliot embarked on a solo singing career.
Her most successful recording during this period was 1968's "Dream a Little Dream of
Me" from her solo album of the same name, released by Dunhill Records though it had
originally been released on the album The Papas & the Mamas Presented By The Mamas and
the Papas, earlier that year.
Las Vegas incident In October 1968, Elliot made her live solo
debut headlining in Las Vegas at Caesars Palace.
Scheduled for a three-week engagement at $40,000 per week with two shows per night, Elliot
went on a six-month-long crash diet before the show, losing 100 of her 300 pounds.
According to Elliot, the weight loss led to a stomach ulcer and throat problems, which
she treated by drinking milk and cream.
For three weeks before the first performance, a nervous Elliot was confined to her bed as
the musical director, the band and the production supervisor attempted to put together a show
in her absence.
Although scheduled to rehearse for a full three days before the show opened, Elliot
managed to get through only part of one runthrough with the band before claiming that she was
losing her voice.
She skipped the remainder of rehearsals and drank tea and lemon, hoping to recover and
pull herself together for opening night.
On the evening of Tuesday, October 16, an audience of 950 people, including Sammy Davis,
Jr., Peter Lawford, and Jimi Hendrix, filled the Circus Maximus theatre.
Joan Baez, Liza Minnelli and Mia Farrow had sent flowers to Elliot's dressing room.
But backstage, a shivering Elliot had developed a raging fever and her vocal cords were hemorrhaging.
Friends attempted to urge her manager to cancel the show, but he felt it was too important
and insisted that she perform.
Sick and having barely rehearsed, Elliot began to fall apart as she was performing.
Her voice was weak and barely audible, and despite the celebrity well-wishers, the large
crowd was not sympathetic.
At the end of the show, she returned to the stage to apologize to the audience stating
"This is the first night and it will get better," then sang "Dream a Little Dream of Me" and
left the stage as the audience applauded half-heartedly.
She returned later that night to perform the second show, but her voice was worse and many
of the audience noisily walked out.
Reviews were harsh.
Esquire magazine called the show "a disaster" that was "heroic in proportion, epic in scope."
The Los Angeles Free Press called the show "an embarrassing drag."
Newsweek compared the show to the Titanic disaster: "Like some great ocean liner embarking
on an ill-fated maiden voyage, Mama Cass slid down the ways and sank to the bottom."
The show closed after only one night and Elliot flew back to Los Angeles for what was described
as "a tonsillectomy."
Within hours, rumors began to spread that Elliot had been taking drugs in the weeks
before the performance.
In her biography, Dream a Little Dream of Me, author Eddi Fiegel wrote that Elliot later
admitted to a boyfriend that she had shot up on heroin immediately before going on stage.
Embarrassed by the debacle, Elliot plunged into a deep depression.
Later work
Elliot appeared in two television variety specials: The Mama Cass Television Show and
Don't Call Me Mama Anymore.
She was a regular guest on TV talk shows and variety shows in the early 1970s, including
The Mike Douglas Show, The Andy Williams Show, Hollywood Squares, The Johnny Cash Show, The
Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, and The Carol Burnett Show and was a guest panelist for
a week on the game show Match Game '73.
She guest-hosted for Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show and also appeared on the show
13 other times.
She also appeared on and co-hosted The Music Scene on ABC and was featured on the first
The Midnight Special on NBC.
In 1972, she made three appearances on the variety series The Julie Andrews Hour.
Her final appearance on the show was the Christmas installment that aired on Wednesday, December
20, 1972.
In December, 1978, four years after Elliot's death, the episode was rebroadcast on syndicated
stations as a Christmas special called Merry Christmas With Love, Julie.
However, all of Elliot's solos were cut from the syndicated prints.
In 2009, a complete videotape of The Julie Andrews Hour Christmas Show was donated to
The Paley Center For Media in New York with all of Elliot's numbers intact.
In 1973, she performed in Saga of Sonora, a 1973 TV music-comedy-western special with
Jill St. John, Vince Edwards, Zero Mostel, and Lesley Ann Warren.
She also sang the jingle "Hurry on down to Hardee's, where the burgers are charco-broiled"
for Hardee's fast-food advertisements.
Throughout the early 1970s, Elliot continued her acting career as well.
She had a featured role in the 1970 movie Pufnstuf and made guest appearances on TV's
The New Scooby-Doo Movies, Young Dr. Kildare, Love, American Style, and The Red Skelton
Show, among others.
In 1973, Elliot hired Allan Carr, who at the time managed the careers of Tony Curtis, Ann-Margret,
and Peter Sellers, as her manager.
Carr felt that Elliot needed to leave pop and rock music altogether, and head into the
cabaret circuit, so a show was put together that consisted of old standards along with
a few new songs written for her by friends.
The act included Elliot and two male singers, who served as backing singers and sidekicks
during the musical numbers.
The title of the show, Don't Call Me Mama Anymore, was named after one of the songs
written by Elliot's friend, Earle Brown.
The song was born out of Elliot's frustration with being identified as "Mama Cass".
After the show debuted on February 9, 1973 in Pittsburgh, Elliot felt she was ready to
tackle Las Vegas once again and premiered at the Flamingo.
This time, Elliot received rave reviews.
The Las Vegas Sun wrote, "Cass Elliot, making a strong point that she is no longer Mama
Cass, has a good act serving notice that she is here to stay.
The audience was with her all the way... no empty seats anywhere."
She then took her act to higher-echelon casinos and swankier nightclubs in cities throughout
the country.
Personal life Elliot was married twice, the first time in
1963 to James Hendricks, her groupmate in The Big 3 and The Mugwumps.
This was reportedly a platonic arrangement to assist him in avoiding being drafted into
the army during the Vietnam War; the marriage reportedly was never consummated and was annulled
in 1968.
In 1971, Elliot married journalist Baron Donald von Wiedenman who was heir to a Bavarian barony.
Their marriage ended in divorce after a few months.
Elliot gave birth to a daughter, Owen Vanessa Elliot, on April 26, 1967.
She never publicly identified the father, but many years later, Michelle Phillips helped
Owen locate her biological father.
After Elliot's death, her younger sister, Leah Kunkel, received custody of Owen, then
just seven years old.
Owen grew up to become a singer as well and toured with Beach Boys member Al Jardine.
Death At the height of her solo career in 1974,
Elliot performed two weeks of sold-out concerts at the London Palladium.
She telephoned Michelle Phillips after the final concert on July 28, elated that she
had received standing ovations each night.
She then retired for the evening, and died in her sleep at age 32.
Sources state her death was due to a heart attack.
Elliot died in a London flat, No. 12 at 9 Curzon Place, Shepherd Market, Mayfair, which
was on loan from singer/songwriter Harry Nilsson.
Four years later, The Who's drummer Keith Moon died in the same flat at the same age.
Elliot was buried in Mount Sinai Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles.
An oft-repeated urban legend claims that Elliot choked to death on a ham sandwich.
The story, which spread soon after the discovery of her body, was based on speculation in the
initial media coverage.
Although an autopsy had not yet been performed, police told reporters that a partially eaten
sandwich found in her room might have been to blame.
Despite the post-mortem examination finding that Elliot had died of a heart attack and
no food was found in her windpipe, the false story that she choked on a sandwich has persisted
in the decades following her death.
In fact, Elliot had lost 80 pounds in the eight months before her death by fasting four
days a week.
Her fatal heart attack was most likely related to this extreme weight loss measure that weakened
her heart.
Tributes and other popular culture references The song "Mama, I Remember You Now" by the
Swedish artist Marit Bergman is a tribute to Elliot.
She was the subject of a 2004 stage production in Dublin, The Songs of Mama Cass, with Kristin
Kapelli performing main vocals.
The Crosby, Stills & Nash Greatest Hits album released in 2005 was dedicated to Cass Elliot.
The British play and film Beautiful Thing feature her recordings and one character reflects
on her memories of Elliot.
Anthony Kiedis of Red Hot Chili Peppers cited The Mamas & the Papas, and especially Elliot,
as an influence, in an interview for Rolling Stone, saying, "There have been times when
I've been very down and out in my life, and the sound of her voice has sort of given me
a reason to want to carry on."
Boy George and k.d.
lang also cited Elliot as an influence.
George described her as "the greatest white female singer ever."
Beth Ditto, singer of the band Gossip, named Elliot both as music and fashion inspiration,
saying, "I really wanted to sound like Mama Cass growing up."
Elliot's recording of "Make Your Own Kind of Music" is featured prominently in several
episodes of seasons 2 and 3 of Lost as well as season 8, episodes 2 and 9 of Dexter.
Her recording of "It's Getting Better" was featured in a season 4 episode of Lost.
Since her death, Elliot and the circumstances surrounding her death have been the butt of
numerous jokes in comedy routines, movies, and songs, by performers such as Frank Zappa,
Adam Sandler, Denis Leary, Mike Myers, "Weird Al" Yankovic, Robin Williams and others.
Discography Albums
The Big 3 1963: The Big 3
1964: Live at the Recording Studio The Mugwumps
1965: The Mugwumps The Mamas and the Papas
1966: If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears 1966: The Mamas & the Papas
1967: The Mamas and the Papas Deliver 1968: The Papas & The Mamas
1970: Monterey Pop Festival 1971: People Like Us
Solo 1968: Dream a Little Dream - US #87
1969: Bubblegum, Lemonade, and...
Something for Mama - US #91 1969: Make Your Own Kind of Music - US #169
1970: Mama's Big Ones - US #194 1971: Dave Mason & Cass Elliot- US #49
1972: Cass Elliot 1972: The Road Is No Place for a Lady
1973: Don't Call Me Mama Anymore Soundtrack
1996: Beautiful Thing Singles
References
External links
Cass Elliot at the Internet Movie Database The Official Cass Elliot Website