Another audio legend has fallen: The mighty excellent a single that the Mamas & the Papas singer Cass Elliot choked to demise on a ham sandwich evidently is not legitimate.
That’s in accordance to “Mama” Cass’ daughter, Owen Elliot-Kugell, who was only 7 and living in the United States when her mother died in a borrowed London flat. Now, Elliot-Kugell has pieced with each other aspects of her mother’s death for her reserve, “My Mama, Cass,” which dropped Tuesday.
“I would go above to kids’ residences after university and ultimately one of their mothers and fathers would talk to me, ‘Did your mom really die choking on a ham sandwich?’” Elliot-Kugell told People today. “First of all, the chutzpah to say that to a baby is just outrageous, but it occurred a good deal. So I felt it was my obligation to figure out what that story was all about.
“There was a ham sandwich, but she didn’t try to eat it and she didn’t choke on it. So sufficient with the jokes,” Elliot-Kugell informed the BBC.
The “California Dreamin’” singer was carrying out solo in 1968 following a number of a long time with the Mamas & the Papas, and on June 27, 1974, she found herself remaining at a London flat loaned to her by pal Harry Nilsson. She had just accomplished her two-week run of shows at London’s Palladium and then stayed up for 36 several hours straight, her daughter mentioned, for Mick Jagger’s birthday social gathering and then a brunch in her honor the future day. When she received property, she was hungry, so an assistant manufactured her a ham sandwich. She fell asleep devoid of getting a bite.
On June 29, she was located useless in mattress.
The tale about what Elliot-Kugell referred to as “the stupid sandwich” was, it turns out, invented by the singer’s manager, Allan Carr. He fed it to a journalist, Sue Cameron, who wrote it up in the Hollywood Reporter, Elliot-Kugell advised the BBC.
“He was crying and upset and he claimed, ‘There’s a half-eaten ham sandwich on the nightstand,’” Cameron explained to Men and women. Carr was concerned that the “Monday, Monday” singer — like friends Janis Joplin in 1970 and Jim Morrison in 1971 — had overdosed. But there wasn’t enough details yet about her death, and, wanting to safeguard Elliot, she claimed, he advised the inquisitive author, “Just say she died choking on the sandwich.”
The fib seemed to engage in into the media concentrate on Elliot’s weight, as witnessed in coverage of her passing and the aftermath.
Upon Elliot’s death, Carr advised The Times’ wire companies that she had died in her sleep at age 33 and gave no cause of death. But the fourth paragraph of a 4-paragraph L.A. Instances brief about her demise read, “Miss Elliot, who weighed 238 lbs . … was renowned for her several crash diet plans. She was hospitalized in the course of 1 this kind of diet program.”
“Cass Elliot, the rotund American singing star who very first received acclaim as a member of the Mamas and the Papas pop-singing team in the 1960s, was observed useless in mattress Monday night time in her London condominium,” go through the very first paragraph of her L.A. Situations obituary, printed on July 30, 1974, the identical working day autopsy success were being envisioned.
Her individual doctor told The Moments the designed-up tale: She likely choked to dying on a ham sandwich. Of study course, that depth built it into the obituary’s headline.
“But she was a quite significant woman and I could not rule out the possibility of a heart assault,” the medical doctor said. “She had been lifeless for a substantial time right before her physique was found.”
On Aug. 6, 1974, the Related Press noted that Mama Cass experienced died of a heart assault, citing testimony presented in a British loss of life inquest.
“She weighed twice as substantially as she must have,” a pathologist told the inquest. “One of her heart muscle groups experienced turned to fats.” He additional that the worry in what AP termed “the last 48 several hours of the bouncy singer’s life” might have activated the heart attack.
Elliot was identified bare in mattress, propped up from two pillows, a coroner instructed the inquest. No prescription drugs were located in her program.
Now her daughter is making an attempt to suitable what she instructed the BBC was the “beyond annoying, nearly immeasurable” falsehood about how her mom died.
“She realized when she was a teen that she needed to be a performer and explained to everyone that she was going to be the most famous fat lady that ever lived,” Elliot-Kugell said of her mother, who had struggled with obesity considering the fact that she was 7 and was approved amphetamines as a teen to beat her fat achieve.
“She experienced that forethought of information as a youngster. I feel which is pretty great. I believe that is really interesting.”
Periods researcher Valerie Hood contributed to this tale.
