Rose Marie

A performer since the age of three, Rose Marie is best known to television audiences as the irrepressible Sally Rogers, fellow comedy writer and sidekick to Dick Van Dyke and Morey Amsterdam on the classic comedy series "The Dick Van Dyke Show" (CBS, 1961-66). An earlier generation knew her as 'Baby Rose Marie' from her NBC radio show and her vaudeville performances across the country. Since she possessed a very throaty, mature-sounding voice even at the age of three, listeners who had not seen her live refused to believe she was as advertised, insisting in their letters, "That's not a child. No child sounds like that!" Her appearance as 'Baby Rose Marie' in several musical shorts and the feature "International House" (1933), which also showcased W.C. Fields and Burns & Allen among the acts, may have convinced some of the doubters, although many, not believing a child capable of such adult style, still accused her of being a 45-year-old midget.

When she hit her teens, Rose Marie, like many child acts, "retired". In her case, she attended a convent school in New Jersey. By the early 1940s, the now mature singer re-emerged as 'Miss Rose Marie' but found it difficult to recapture her earlier success. She spent much of the 1940s on the nightclub circuit but after her marriage and the birth of her daughter, Rose Marie tired of the traveling. She demonstrated her thespian abilities in a series of guest appearances on TV dramas which led to an occasional movie role. Rose Marie acted in films like "Top Banana" (1954), "Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round" (1966) and "Lunch Wagon" (1980), but she logged far more time on the small screen. In addition to "The Dick Van Dyke Show", she was a regular on "My Sister Eileen" (CBS, 1960-61), "The Doris Day Show" (CBS, 1969-1971), and played Mitzi Balzer, the sharp-tongued owner of the Pioneers baseball team, in Fox's short-lived sitcom "Hardball" (1994). Many people remember her as a celebrity panelist on NBC's long-running daytime "Hollywood Squares" (1966-80), and she made countless guest appearances on popular series throughout the years, most recently on "Wings" (1996) and "Suddenly Susan" (1997). The "Vaudeville" episode of "American Masters" (PBS, 1997) featured Rose Marie and fellow vaudevillians June Havoc, Bobby Short, Morey Amsterdam and the Nicholas Brothers among the interviewees.