Cass Elliot

Ellen Naomi Cohen (September 19, 1941 – July 29, 1974), known professionally by the stage name Cass Elliot, was an American singer-songwriter, actress, comedian, and television personality. A member of the singing group The Mamas & the Papas (1965–1968), she was also known as "Mama Cass", a name she stated she disliked. After the group broke up, Elliot released five solo albums. She received the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary (R&R) Performance for "Monday, Monday" (1967). In 1998, she was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for her work with The Mamas & the Papas.

Ellen Naomi Cohen was born on September 19, 1941, in Baltimore, Maryland, the daughter of Philip Cohen (1916–1962) and Bess Cohen (née Levine; 1915–1994). She was Jewish with all four of her grandparents being Russian-Jewish immigrants. Her family was subject to significant financial stresses and uncertainties during her childhood years. Her father, involved in several business ventures, ultimately succeeded with the development of a lunch wagon in Baltimore that provided meals to construction workers. Her mother was a trained nurse. Elliot had a brother, Joseph, and a younger sister, Leah, who also became a singer and recording artist. Elliot's early life was spent with her family in Alexandria, Virginia, and when she was 15, the family moved back to Baltimore, where they had briefly lived at the time of Elliot's birth.

Elliot adopted the name "Cass" in high school, possibly borrowing it from actress Peggy Cass, according to Denny Doherty. She assumed the surname "Elliot" some time later, in memory of a friend who had died. While in Alexandria, she attended George Washington High School. When Elliot's family returned to Baltimore, she attended Forest Park High School. While attending Forest Park High School, Elliot became interested in acting. She won a small part in the play The Boy Friend, a summer stock production at the Hilltop Theatre in Owings Mills, Maryland. She left high school shortly before graduation and moved to New York City to further her acting career (as recounted in the lyrics to "Creeque Alley").

After leaving high school to pursue an entertainment career in New York, Elliot toured in the musical The Music Man in 1962 under the name Cass Elliot, but lost the part of Miss Marmelstein in I Can Get It for You Wholesale to Barbra Streisand. Elliot sometimes sang while working as a cloakroom attendant at The Showplace in Greenwich Village, but she did not pursue a singing career until she moved to the Washington, DC, area to attend American University (not Swarthmore College as mentioned in the biographical song "Creeque Alley").

America's folk music scene was on the rise when Elliot met banjoist and singer Tim Rose and singer John Brown, and the three began performing as the Triumvirate. In 1963, James Hendricks replaced Brown, and the trio was renamed the Big 3. Elliot's first recording with the Big 3 was "Winken, Blinken, and Nod", released by FM Records in 1963. In 1964, the group appeared on an "open mic" night at The Bitter End in Greenwich Village, billed as Cass Elliot and the Big 3, followed onstage by folk singer Jim Fosso and bluegrass banjoist Eric Weissberg.

Biography summary from English Wikipedia, photograph via Wikimedia Commons.