Heartfelt Tributes to Rosie

by Nick Clooney (Rosemary's Brother)
Cincinnati Post, March 21, 2003

When my sister Rosemary and I would talk -- several times a week --
before her death last year, the conversation would often turn to
missing friends.

Not at all unusual, of course, for aging siblings, but because of
Rosemary's prominence in entertainment, some of the people we talked
about were famous: Bing Crosby, Marlene Dietrich, Henry Mancini and a
few dozen others.

Rosemary had a fatalistic attitude about the nature of fame. "The
water closes quickly over you once you're gone," she would say.

Her point was well taken. For many celebrities, fame does not outlast
their lifetimes. My argument with Rosemary was that the result was
not inevitable. Some whose talent touched their contemporaries left
footprints that did not disappear with the first rain.

Today, I would be able to tell Rosemary what all younger brothers
dream of: "I told you so."

Of course, there have been memorials to Rosemary and there will be
more. These have been arranged by family, friends and co-workers.

But something else is happening. There are direct and indirect
tributes to Rosemary written and produced by people who didn't know
Rosemary at all, except as an artist who touched their lives. We in
the family knew little or nothing about them until they were in
production or were actually being performed.

For instance, "A Dash of Rosemary" had a limited run for the first
half of this month in a theater in New York City. Nina and I were on the road and didn't get to see it, but friends tell us it was performed by three singers whose purpose was to trace Rosemary's life with her songs, some three dozen of them.Among those who saw the show were our Augusta friends Bob and Carolyn Wehling. Bob wrote, "We thought they did a great job of presenting
her life and top songs over the years." He went on to suggest that
the show might be a great addition to the Rosemary Clooney Music
Festival in Maysville in September. Good idea.