Rose Marie of ‘Dick Van Dyke Show’ fame dies at 94
LOS ANGELES — Rose Marie, the wisecracking Sally Rogers of “The Dick Van Dyke Show” and a show business lifer who began as a bobbed-hair child star in vaudeville and worked for nearly a century in theater, radio, TV and movies, died Thursday. She was 94.
Marie had been resting in bed at her Los Angeles-area home when a caretaker found she had stopped breathing, said family spokesman Harlan Boll.
“Heaven just got a whole lot funnier” was the tribute posted atop a photo of Marie on her website.
She was a child star of the 1920s and 1930s who endeared herself to TV fans on the classic ’60s sitcom that featured Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore.
The subject of the 2017 documentary “Wait for Your Laugh,” Marie often claimed she had the longest career in entertainment history. It spanned some 90 years, with co-stars ranging from W.C. Fields to Garfield the cat, and the highlight for many was “The Dick Van Dyke Show.”
The sitcom was widely loved for its sophisticated writing, inspired casting and insightful view of the inner workings of the then-new medium of television. Van Dyke starred as Rob Petrie, head writer for a hit comedy-variety show, and Mary Tyler Moore, in her first major role, played his wife Laura.
The blonde, raspy-voiced Marie teamed with her pal Morey Amsterdam as assistant writers.
Drawing on his experiences on Sid Caesar’s shows, Carl Reiner created the series, wrote and directed many episodes and made occasional appearances as the surly star, Alan Brady. After an uncertain beginning in 1961, “The Dick Van Dyke Show” caught on with TV viewers, was still popular when it ended in 1966 and remained a favorite for decades in reruns.
“The Dick Van Dyke Show” not only was an ideal vehicle for Marie’s comic gifts, but was a showcase for her singing, with Sally belting out “Come Rain or Come Shine” and other old favorites during nightclub and party scenes.
Marie was especially proud of playing a woman defined by her work, a rare sitcom character at the time who wasn’t “a wife, mother, or housekeeper,” she tweeted in 2017.
She was born Rose Marie Mazetta of Italian-Polish parentage in New York City on Aug. 15, 1923.