Hold the Roses

We all remember Rose Marie as the wisecracking Sally Rogers on The Dick Van Dyke Show, or recognize her from her perch in the top middle square on Hollywood Squares, but not everyone knows her career in show business has spanned almost seventy years. At the tender age of three Rose Marie Mazzetta was entered in an amateur contest at New York City's Mecca Theatre. Her rendition of "What Can I Say Dear, After I Say I'm Sorry?" won, and her career was launched. She stayed "Baby Rose Marie" until she was well into her teens, singing in nightclubs, on vaudeville stages, on the radio, and in the movies. It was a glamorous but difficult life—she worked side by side with legends such as Al Jolson, Milton Berle, and W.C. Fields, and was watched over by "Uncle" Al Capone and his associates—but her father managed her career and personal life with an iron fist, gambling her earnings away and abusing her and any boy foolish enough to show an interest in the family meal ticket.