Rose Marie Mazetta (August 15, 1923 – December 28, 2017)
Rose Marie, best known for her role as Sally Rogers on “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” who had a nine-decade career in show business, died Thursday in Van Nuys, Calif. She was 94.
Publicist Harlan Boll confirmed her death.
Rose Marie was Emmy nominated three times for her work on “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” in which she played part of the writing team, led by Van Dyke’s Rob Petrie, for the fictional “Alan Brady Show.” The actress began a five-season stint as Sally Rogers in 1960.
The recent documentary “Wait For Your Laugh” by director Jason Wise chronicled her long career. Late in life she enjoyed communicating with her fans on social media. Her official account tweeted just a few hours before her death about playing the Flamingo in Las Vegas.
Decades earlier, she had been a child singing star under the name Baby Rose Marie. She began her career at 3, starring in her own show on NBC radio by the age of 5, cutting records and appearing in vaudeville, in shorts including 1929’s “Baby Rose Marie the Child Wonder” and in Paramount’s 1933 feature “International House” with W.C. Fields.
Variety founder Sime Silverman himself mentioned Rose Marie in its pages for “The Child Wonder,” writing, “Though but a kidlet, she seemed to have an idea of her own.”
Later, as a teenager, she became a nightclub singer before returning to radio as a comedienne.
In the early 1950s Rose Marie appeared on television variety shows as a singer and dancer, and she returned to the bigscreen in 1954, starring opposite Phil Silvers in “Top Banana,” an adaptation of Silvers’ Broadway show about a TV comedian.
The actress recurred on “The Bob Cummings Show” as Martha in 1958-59, and she was a series regular on a brief TV adaptation of “My Sister Eileen.” After “The Dick Van Dyke Show” she guested on a variety of TV shows, including “The Monkees” and “My Three Sons,” and she recurred on “The Doris Day Show.”
During the 1960s she also appeared onstage in “Bye Bye Birdie” and in a pair of features, starring opposite her “Van Dyke” co-star Morey Amsterdam in “Don’t Worry, We’ll Think of a Title,” and appearing in “Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round,” starring James Coburn.
Rose Marie made a steady stream of TV appearances from the early 1970s until the early 2000s, appearing, for example, on “Adam-12” and “Kojak”; recurring as Hilda the sandwich delivery lady on “S.W.A.T.”; appearing repeatedly in different roles on “The Love Boat”; guesting on “Cagney and Lacey” and “Murphy Brown”; appearing as a series regular on the brief 1994 sports comedy “Hardball”; and guesting on “Caroline in the City” (with Amsterdam), “Wings” and “Suddenly, Susan.” She was also a semi-regular on “Hollywood Squares” in the 1980s and ’90s.
Onstage, she starred with Rosemary Clooney, Helen O’Connell and Margaret Whiting in the musical revue “4 Girls 4,” which toured the U.S. and made television appearances for several years beginning in 1977.
In the 2000s she appeared in another comedienne’s HBO special, “Tracey Ullman in the Trailer Tales,” and returned to the “Van Dyke” fold for Carl Reiner’s animated “The Alan Brady Show” and for 2004’s “The Dick Van Dyke Show Revisited.”
Rose Marie Mazetta was born in New York City. She was married to trumpeter Bobby Guy from 1946 until his death in 1964.
She is survived by a daughter, Georgiana Marie “Noopy” and her son-in-law Steven Rodrigues. Donations may be made to Thrive and Heaven Helper’s Rescue.
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