Account of Rosemary Clooney Funeral Service and Procession
lapup
http://enquirer.com/editions/2002/07/06/loc_a_small-town.html
Saturday, July 06, 2002
A small-town farewell
for the world's 'girl singer'
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fans, family pay tribute to Rosemary Clooney
By John Kiesewetter, jkiese...@enquirer.com
and Janelle Gelfand, jgel...@enquirer.com
The Cincinnati Enquirer
MAYSVILLE — Rosemary Clooney's friends from New York to
Hollywood gathered in this tiny Ohio River town Friday to say their
final farewell to the Grammy winning singer and movie star.
Nick Clooney (left) talks to Dante DiPaolo, husband of Rosemary
Clooney, at the graveside service.
(Patrick Reddy photos)
| ZOOM |
Karen Smith, sacristan at St. Patrick's Catholic Church in Maysville,
lights a candle before the funeral Mass Friday.
| ZOOM |
Fans of Rosemary Clooney line up outside St. Patrick's Catholic
Church before Friday's funeral.
| ZOOM | Townspeople began lining up outside St. Patrick's
Church at 6 a.m., four hours before the funeral, to pay respects to
the "girl singer" whose dreams, said her brother Nick, took her "from
Maysville to Singapore, and all points in between."
Ms. Clooney, 74, one of the greatest interpreters of American
song and Bing Crosby's co-star in White Christmas, died last Saturday
at her Beverly Hills home after a six-month battle with lung cancer.
Her death came four months after the recording industry gave
her its highest honor, a Lifetime Achievement Award. It was the
singer's first Grammy in a 57-year career that began in Cincinnati,
when the blond Maysville teenager and her younger sister Betty began
singing on WLW radio.
The closed-casket service was in the 100-year-old St.
Patrick's Church, graced with more than two dozen floral bouquets,
many with roses. Cooling fans were set up and drinking water was
available in the back of the church, which is not air-conditioned.
The overflow crowd of about 800 was a mixture of relatives,
friends, fans, movie stars, Cincinnati entertainers, at least one of
her Mayo Clinic doctors and several nationally known musical figures
who were influenced by her long career.
"We come to the place she knew well, three blocks from her
big, slow, muddy river ... to mourn days we will not share with her,
and to celebrate the days we did," Nick Clooney said in a brief eulogy
at the conclusion of the Mass. "Let me do something I never would have
presumed to do a week ago — speak for Rosemary. My sister would like
to thank all of you."
Then he turned to the coffin and said, "I have avoided saying
two words we have all come here to say, some of us from so far:
Goodbye Rosemary."
"She was amazing'
They came from all over to say goodbye for different reasons.
"Since I was a little girl, watching White Christmas over and
over, I just adored her. She was so down-to-earth. She didn't let
celebrity go to her head," said Dee Dee Denton from Cynthiana, who got
up at 4:30 a.m. Friday to make the 45-minute drive to Maysville. Ms.
Denton also attended Ms. Clooney's 1997 wedding to Dante DiPaolo in
the church.
Also arriving early from Cincinnati was Eileen Krause, who had
seen Ms. Clooney perform at Riverbend Music Center and on television.
Actor George Clooney was among the nephews and sons of Rosemary
Clooney who helped carry the singer's casket.
| ZOOM |
Actors Beverly D'Angelo and Al Pacino leave St. Patrick's Cemetery.
| ZOOM | "I never got to meet her," said Mrs. Krause, of
Pleasant Ridge. "This is the closest I'm ever going to get to her —
until I get to heaven."
Betty Russell of Lexington, wanted to be there because of a
50-year-old memory. "I had lunch with her 50 years ago, when she
opened the tobacco season in Lexington," she said. "I can still see
her in her full-length mink coat, singing "Come On-a My House.'"
Standing a few dozen people behind her was Dr. Dana Thompson
of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., who had assisted in surgery
there eight weeks ago to help restore Ms. Clooney's singing voice. She
said Ms. Clooney had hoped to sing again, as soon as Sept. 28, for the
Fourth Annual Rosemary Clooney Music Festival here.
In the hospital, Ms. Clooney had impressed the doctor with her
spirit.
"She was amazing, always talking to people no matter how sick
she was, trying to make sure everyone around her was enjoying the
day," she said.
Dr. Thompson, who trained for two years at Cincinnati
Children's Hospital Medical Center, said she "had a real bond with
her."
"We'd talk about Graeter's ice cream and cheese coneys. ...
She would hum things to me and say, "Look, Dr. Dana, my voice is
back.' "
A mother's advice
The service was a traditional Mass of Christian burial, with a
half-hour musical prelude that included "Ave Maria." The communion
hymn, "On Eagle's Wings,'' was personally selected by Ms. Clooney. The
family also chose ""Panis Angelicus" because it was "the one that I
know she loved," her brother said.
Nick Clooney and his son George leave St. Patrick's Cemetery
| ZOOM | Mr. DiPaolo, seated in the first pew, was often
comforted by singer Debby Boone, married to Gabriel Ferrer, Ms.
Clooney's son. She entered church at his side.
"He just looked overwhelmed, walking in, right on the same
stairs where he'd just — it seems like yesterday — gotten married,"
Ms. Boone said.
Gabriel Ferrer, who read two scripture passages, said he
relied on his mother's advice to get through the moment.
"When my mother sang at Debby's and my wedding, she said it
was one of the hardest things she ever did," he said. "She said she
had to keep thinking of the Ohio River ... and that's how she got
through it. You just go to another place where you can't almost
personalize it."
Final tribute
The crowd of more than 100 outside the church was quiet and
respectful when the 10 pallbearers — sons, grandsons and nephew George
Clooney — appeared with the coffin after the service. As the
procession of more than two dozen cars wound through the streets to
St. Patrick Cemetery in nearby Old Washington, people paused to pay a
final tribute. Ms. Clooney was buried on a rolling hill sloping down
to the river valley, in the shade of trees with a weathered barn in
the distance.
It was a moment Michael Feinstein, a singer, pianist and Ms.
Clooney's former Beverly Hills neighbor, will never forget.
"The most moving experience that I had today was to see all
the people lining the streets in the procession to the cemetery, to
see everybody stopping their work, little children holding flowers,
and all of the police officers standing at attention," Mr. Feinstein
said. "I'll never forget that."
Actor Miguel Ferrer, the oldest of Ms. Clooney's five
children, was impressed that so many came and showed "so much support
and love," he said. The actor (RoboCop, Crossing Jordan) recalled how
he and his siblings enjoyed summers with their mother in Maysville.
"We would come and spend every summer here. Either someone
would rent a house or we'd be at grandmother's farm," he said. "It's
incredible. Every time I'd come back here, it's like I'm coming home.
It's such a part of my life."
Miguel and his brothers and sisters, and their children, flew
in from Los Angeles for the service.
Among others who came to Maysville were jazz singer and
pianist Diana Krall; Kathryn Crosby, widow of Bing; and actors Al
Pacino and Beverly D'Angelo. All were frequently in the audience when
Ms. Clooney headlined at New York's Rainbow & Stars nightclub and
Feinstein's at the Regency. Ms. D'Angelo, whose father once played
bass in Tony Pastor's orchestra, had a special bond with Ms. Clooney,
who toured with the orchestra shortly after her 1945 debut on WLW-AM.
Many struggled with the realization that Ms. Clooney was gone.
"It hasn't hit me yet that she's not going to walk out on the
stage ever again," said John Oddo, her music director of 18 years, who
had flown in from New York. "What I've learned from her I will try to
pass onto other younger singers that I work with. I already find
myself saying, what would Rosemary Clooney do in this situation?
Nephew George Clooney, the ER and movie star who slept on the
floor of his aunt's home while trying to break into show business in
the early 1980s, tried to deflect attention from himself most of
Friday.
PHOTO GALLERY
Click through 16 photos At a reception in nearby Augusta after
the service, he stayed inside a house with family instead of mingling
with the public gathered under a tent until after reporters had left.
He declined an interview, simply saying: "She was a great lady."
Also attending the service were Maysville native and former
Miss America Heather French Henry, the wife of Kentucky Lt. Gov. Steve
Henry; Cincinnati TV singers Colleen Sharp Murray, Mary Ellen Tanner
and Nancy James; newsmen Walt Maher and Don Herman; producer Dick
Murgatroyd; and musicians Lee Stolar and John Von Ohlen.
"She was always fascinated that Cincinnati had so many girl
singers," said Mrs. Murray.
"I will miss her as one of my mentors," said Ms. Tanner, who
sang at the reception. "We always kept in touch. With Rosemary, its
was always like talking to a girlfriend."
Ms. Clooney kept coming back to Kentucky partly because she
loved the Ohio River, said her biographer Joan Barthel, who helped her
write Girl Singer (Broadway Books; $14.95) in 1999.
"She had a great connection with the river," Ms. Barthel said.
"At the end of the book, she says, she knows she can always follow the
river safely home."
Ms. Clooney's passing leaves a void, Mr. Oddo said.
"She and Tony (Bennett) were the only two left of that
generation and that stature and that kind of talent still singing.
Tony's the only one left now," he said.
As Nick Clooney prepared for her funeral Friday morning, he
played some of his sister's recordings.
"I still feel her presence when I listen to her albums," he
said. "And I have a little conversation with her."
He said plans are being made to add Rosemary's songs to a
musical clock tower in Augusta, where the singer owned a home
overlooking the Ohio River.
"I believe, unlike most of us, that people will be talking
about Rosemary Clooney 50 years from now, or 75 years from now — as
they do about Bing Crosby or Al Jolson," Nick Clooney said.
Reader tributes and memorials
Previous coverage