‘Van Dyke Show’ actress generated laughs for decades
ROSE MARIE 1923-2017
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.
Rose 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 Rose Marie on her website.
Born Rose Marie Mazetta in New York City on Aug. 15, 1923, she became 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,” Rose Marie often said 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 Rose 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 Rose 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.
Rose 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.
Just this past October, the Mill Valley Film Festival opening night film was “Wait for Your Laugh,” the documentary about her life.
“She’s an amazing survivor,” Carl Reiner, the creator of “The Dick Van Dyke Show” told Chronicle freelance writer Edward Guthmann by phone in September. “I remember when I read her book (“Hold the Roses,” 2002) I called her and said, ‘Rose Marie, you have a lot of reasons to be a lot crazier than you are.’
She couldn’t travel to Mill Valley to receive her tribute, but after the film’s screening, the audience watched a video of festival Executive Director Mark Fishkin and Director of Programming Zoe Elton presenting Rose Marie the award at her home in Southern California. The documentary not only focused on her career, but her personal life, including her relationship with the Mafia.
“They loved me,” she told Guthmann by phone. “I was a kid and they took care of me. Every Vegas hotel had their own mob guy at the head of it. They would go, ‘Where you working next week?’ and I’d say ‘I don’t have anything.’ ‘OK, you’re working in Tahoe.’ I’d say, “OK.” And after that, “You’re working Reno.”
In 2001, she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 2017, she extended her reach to social media, her Twitter feed quickly attracting more than 100,000 followers.