With her recording success, Hollywood naturally came calling.Īs Paramount's latest "girl next door," the blond, blue-eyed Mrs. 1 tune that became her theme song), Half as Much, Too Old to Cut The Mustard (a duet with Marlene Dietrich), The Night Before Christmas Song (with Gene Autry), Hey There, This Ole House and Mambo Italiano. Clooney amassed a string of hits, including Tenderly (a No. Clooney had one of the biggest-selling songs in the country, and Come On-a My House went on to sell more than a million copies. The savvy Miller's instincts proved correct: Within weeks, Mrs. I will fire you unless you show up tomorrow." When she told Miller she wouldn't do it, she recalled in her 1977 autobiography This for Remembrance, Miller said, "Well, let me put it this way. Clooney balked at singing _ in a fake accent that sounded more Italian than Armenian _ what she considered a "dumb" song with lyrics that "sounded more like a drunken chant than an historic folk art form." She also hated the "gimmicky" arrangement: It was orchestrated for an amplified harpsichord. Clooney and her younger sister as entertainers at his political rallies. Their grandfather, Andrew Clooney, a jeweler who served on the City Council and was a one-term elected mayor of Maysville, featured Mrs. Clooney, along with younger brother Nick _ the father of actor George Clooney _ and younger sister Betty, lived with various relatives.
Her parents separated frequently and her father, a heavy drinker, was rarely around.
Clooney was born May 23, 1928, in Maysville, Ky. They were both nervous, Feinstein said, and he expected her to give him words of wisdom, but she turned to him and said, "Don't think this ever gets any easier."
Clooney numerous times over the years, recalled one engagement at the Hollywood Bowl. "She was an earth mother, a heart person, and that quality came through in her music."įeinstein, who worked with Mrs. "Her music was an extraordinary extension of this joyful soul," her longtime friend, the singer and pianist Michael Feinstein said Saturday night. And her turn toward jazz in recent decades has simply been a matter of bringing to the surface rhythmic qualities that were always a subtext in her singing." "Clooney's voice," Heckman wrote in 2000, "has been one of the natural wonders _ too often underappreciated _ since her pop star days in the '50s.