Opposite to well-liked fable, Mama Cass Elliot didn’t die from choking on a ham sandwich, her daughter is eager for individuals to know.
On the eve of the 50th anniversary of the demise of the songstress with the Mamas and the Papas, Elliot’s daughter has informed the BBC.
Owen Elliot-Kugell defined: “There was a ham sandwich, however she didn’t eat it and she or he didn’t choke on it. So sufficient with the jokes.”
Mama Cass died aged 32 within the London flat of fellow singer Harry Nilsson in 1974, after she had completed a two-week run of performances on the London Palladium. The post-mortem confirmed her case of demise as a coronary heart assault.
On the time, and in lots of cultural references since, it was reported that she had choked to demise on a ham sandwich, which was discovered by her bedside.
Her daughter, who has written a guide My Mama, Cass in regards to the pair’s relationship, informed the BBC that for her guide she had pieced collectively the final hours of her mom’s life, together with her closing live performance and several other events:
“By the point she obtained again to her flat, it was night the next day. She was hungry, and her dancer made her a sandwich from the one factor that was within the flat, ham, and left it on her bedside desk. She by no means even took a chew.”
Elliot-Kugell found that the parable got here from the singer’s circle wanting to guard her from hypothesis about demise from a drug overdose. She informed the BBC the story had been concocted between Elliot’s supervisor Allan Carr and a journalist pal, explaining: “Carr actually needed to guard her. And there was a sandwich that was discovered there.”
Elliot-Kugell believes the parable performed into the notion of her mom as an obese songbird, one thing that prompted Elliot misery, though her daughter considers her a trailblazer:
“She paved the way in which for these different younger girls these days who’re of a heavier stature to interrupt by way of within the music enterprise and be accepted for who they’re. I actually do imagine that she helped lay the groundwork for lots of people.”
Elliot moved from her native Baltimore to New York within the Sixties, the place she joined the rising people scene. In California, she discovered fame as one of many main voices with the Mamas and the Papas, singing on a few of their greatest hits together with California Dreamin’, Monday Monday and Dream a Little Dream. She made her solo debut in 1968 and continued to carry out till her premature demise.