For many years, Owen Elliot-Kugell needed to put up with listening to a merciless rumor about how her mom died.
“Mama” Cass Elliot, a singer within the ‘60s group The Mamas & The Papas, died after performing a collection of sold-out reveals in London in 1974. She was 32. For almost 50 years, it’s been alleged that she died after choking on a ham sandwich.
Elliot-Kugell was solely 7 years outdated when she misplaced her mom. Now 57, she’s decided to set the file straight along with her memoir, “My Mama, Cass,” now out there in bookstores.
“I bear in mind once I was youthful, and I used to be in class,” Elliot-Kugell recalled to Fox Information Digital. “I might go residence with a child and typically these dad and mom would say to me, ‘Hey, how did your mother actually die? Did she die choking on a ham sandwich?'”
“They’d consider that she had died choking on a ham sandwich, which is what was launched to the press instantly following her demise, as a result of she died in her sleep,” Elliot-Kugell mirrored. “We didn’t know what was occurring for some time and within the very starting… paparazzi was simply beginning. I believe that it was simpler to make up that silly story that was not true.”
Elliott-Kugell admitted that the salacious story haunted her.
“It’s simply such a gross rumor,” she mirrored. “Even from the purpose of being obese, and it’s any person who dies of consuming. All of these connotations that got here alongside with that rumor had been fairly arduous for us. However I additionally knew how ridiculous they had been. So I virtually felt dangerous for individuals who actually believed that. I’m like, ‘Wow, actually? We actually consider that?’ Mama says you can’t repair silly.”
Sue Cameron, a longtime columnist for The Hollywood Reporter who was associates with the late songstress, tried to clear up the rumor in her e-book, “Hollywood Secrets and techniques and Scandals.”
“Concerning the ham sandwich — I used to be the reporter who broke that story,” Cameron beforehand claimed to Fox Information Digital. “I walked in after lunch and folks within the newsroom instructed me she died. I used to be in a state of shock however stopped them from writing the obit. I known as Cass’ house in London, and her supervisor, Allan Carr, was sobbing as he answered the cellphone. I used to be crying, too.”
CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR THE ENTERTAINMENT NEWSLETTER
“I requested what occurred,” Cameron shared. “He stated, ‘I want a favor and, since you’re Cass’ good friend, you’ll do it. I’m taking a look at a half-eaten ham sandwich on her nightstand. Write the story that she choked on it and died. Do you hear me? Write that story now.’… I instantly wrote that story and saved my mouth shut for years about it.”
Cameron claimed that Carr needed “to save lots of her fame.”
“The demise report stated she died of a coronary heart assault,” Cameron careworn. “That’s higher for historical past.”
For her e-book, Elliot-Kugell tracked down her mom’s final dwelling confidantes. She additionally related with Cameron. Whereas no medication had been discovered in Cass’ system on the time of her demise, lots of her friends had died from drug overdoses. Each Elliot-Kugell and Cameron believed that Carr was frightened the press would make the identical assumption.
New York Occasions bestseller Scott G. Shea additionally tried to clear up the misunderstanding in his 2023 e-book, “All of the Leaves Are Brown: How the Mamas & the Papas Got here Collectively and Broke Aside.”
“After performing for 2 weeks and receiving rave opinions, she was at [singer-songwriter] Harry Nilsson’s house and died in her sleep,” Shea instructed Fox Information Digital on the time. “It appeared she had mounted herself a late-night snack, which was a ham sandwich. It was positioned on a nightstand. A health care provider instructed a journalist that she might need choked on the ham sandwich. That reporter ran with that story.”
“There was a full post-mortem investigation,” Shea continued. “They discovered it was coronary heart failure because of a wide range of issues… She took numerous LSD, after which she began on heroin. Now, she wasn’t on heroin at that time in her life, however that possible weakened her coronary heart with time. And she or he was on numerous yo-yo diets the place she would lose 100 kilos, acquire it again and lose it once more for present enterprise. All of these issues collectively contributed to her coronary heart failure.”
One other rumor that Elliot-Kugell was desperate to debunk in her e-book was the identification of her organic father. She realized that he was touring bassist Charles “Chuck” Day with the assistance of Cass’ former bandmate, Michelle Phillips.
“I was 19… and I requested her if she would assist me discover my actual organic father,” Elliot-Kugell defined to Fox Information Digital. “She stated she had her assistant or a good friend of hers put an advert in a newspaper… Considered one of his associates noticed the advert within the newspaper and known as the quantity that was a part of the advert. The very first thing that the man stated was, ‘Is that this in regards to the child?’”
“Michelle had a aircraft ticket for me and stated, ‘Go meet your organic father,'” she shared. “She helped finish that thriller for me, which had been a thriller for a very long time.”
Day, who died in 2008, was keen to inform his daughter the reality.
“I didn’t must ask numerous questions,” Elliot-Kugell defined. “He was more than pleased to simply be very forthcoming with a lot of the info… I used to be interested by how they [knew] one another. It seems that he was the bass participant within the band in the summertime of 1966. They turned associates that manner, and I used to be the product of a one-night stand. That they had truly been collectively one time.”
LIKE WHAT YOU’RE READING? CLICK HERE FOR MORE ENTERTAINMENT NEWS
“In case anyone’s conserving rating of what they inform you in well being class… [it] simply takes one time,” she chuckled.
In 1967, Cass welcomed her solely youngster. The identification of her kid’s father was saved secret for the remainder of the star’s life.
“When she determined to have a baby, when she realized that was one thing she needed to do, one of many issues that she stated to her associates [who later told me] was… ‘I don’t want a person. I’m a rock star. I’ve loads of cash. I’ve all the things I want. I can do that all myself,’” stated Elliot-Kugell.
“That’s the choice… she made, to have a baby. I used to be born out of her desirous to have any person in her life that wasn’t going to go away. She had had a string of relationships with males, and so they weren’t at all times there as a result of they beloved her. They had been there as a result of she was a rock star… She actually needed any person that was going to be there on a regular basis. That’s why she named me Owen. She stated, ‘She’s my very personal.’”
Elliot-Kugell stated she nonetheless has vivid desires of her mom. Throughout the closing months of Cass’ life, she saved busy performing and touring. It was a triumphant, hopeful time for the singer, stated Elliot-Kugell.
“I bear in mind her heat,” she beamed. “I bear in mind simply how giving she was, how loving she was.”
Immediately, Elliot-Kugell hopes to shed new gentle on her mom for each new and longtime followers.
“There’s a complete story there a couple of household who, like many different households, immigrated to the US,” she stated. “Just a few generations later, [my mother] is getting a star on the Hollywood Stroll of Fame… It’s the American dream. You’ll be able to come to this nation and make an trustworthy dwelling. You are able to do your factor, and you’ll be able to find yourself making your desires come true.”
