The wife of Nat King Cole passed away yesterday, as we learn this evening.

I watched a documentary years ago with her claiming that Nat never practiced, trained, or exercised his voice.

He just had raw talent, was her paraphrased belief years after.

I agree.


Jul 11, 10:28 PM EDT

Widow of Nat 'King' Cole dies of cancer at 89


BOCA RATON, Fla. (AP) -- Maria Hawkins Cole, widow of jazz crooner Nat "King" Cole and mother of singer Natalie Cole, has died in South Florida after a short battle with cancer. She was 89.

A representative of the family confirmed that she died Tuesday at a Boca Raton hospice, surrounded by her family.

Before and after marrying the famed singer and piano player, Maria Cole had her own long singing career, performing with greats such as Count Basie and Duke Ellington.

Born in Boston in 1922, she lived as a child in North Carolina after her mother died, according to a statement from the family. She later moved to New York to pursue a music career

According to her family, Ellington heard recordings of Maria Cole singing and hired her as a vocalist with his orchestra. She stayed with him until 1946 when she began soloing at the city's Club Zanzibar as an opening act for the Mills Brothers. There she met Nat "King" Cole.

The two were married in 1948 by then-U.S. Rep. Adam Clayton Powell Jr. at Harlem's Abyssinian Baptist Church.

Maria Cole traveled and performed with her husband throughout the `50s. After her husband died from cancer in 1965, Maria Cole created the Cole Cancer Foundation.

Her children, Natalie, Timolin and Casey Cole, said in a joint statement, "Our mom was in a class all by herself. She epitomized, class, elegance, and truly defined what it is to be a real lady. ... She died how she lived - with great strength, courage and dignity, surrounded by her loving family."

At the time of her death Maria Cole lived in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. Private services will be held in Glendale, Calif.

I'm about 4 houses away from that shark situation. Small world !

Hello Donna! It is great to see your name again! I hope you are doing well!

joez wrote:Hello Donna! It is great to see your name again! I hope you are doing well!

Did DONNA post here recently? I don't see anything from her.

No JR! But I did catch her name in the "Who's On Line"

rusty2 wrote:I'm about 4 houses away from that shark situation. Small world !

Is that a weekend/vacation place for you? Or a vacation spot?

I kick myself in the arse hard for selling a 1/6 share in a harbor side condo south of Beaufort SC, and kick myself harder for letting 2+ acres at about 2,800 feet just northeast of Lake Lure go. I was on the first ridge of consequence in The Appalachians at that point, and could see Charlotte and Spartanburg with ease. I had a rock jutting overlook on the property that had a drop of about 500 feet to the trees below.

I took my now wife and her young kids there "while we were courting." They were all ill at ease with the height and drop off.

Of course, they were all born and raised in California.

I "fixed them" over the years, and now wish I still had that Lake Lure NC property.....

joez wrote:No JR! But I did catch her name in the "Who's On Line"

But, did you ever see her on "What's My Line?"


One down, nine to go.....

In laws place.

joez wrote:No JR! But I did catch her name in the "Who's On Line"

Glad she is a able to read here, at least. Hopefully she will post soon, after she sees we are talking about her.

This Minnesota girl otter be more careful....

http://news.yahoo.com/video/triathlete- ... 00424.html

Just a note that tonight is the 43rd anniversary of the death of Mary Jo Kopechne in Ted Kennedy's car off the east side of Martha's Vineyard. July 18, 1969.

History recaps rarely note that Neil Armstrong and crew were hurtling toward a date with destiny on the moon when Kennedy was partying and drove off the bridge with a campaign phone girl. The lunar module landed on the moon on July 20, 1969.

Next year will unbelievably (for me) be the 50th anniversary of the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

Oh, oh, Ohhh-lympics! As record 150,000 condoms are handed out to a host of super-attractive athletes, could London 2012 be the raunchiest games ever?



Athletes will receive 15 condoms each for the 17-day festival


'I've seen athletes having sex out in the open, getting down and dirty on grass between buildings,' says U.S. women's goalie
Victoria Pendleton among the glamorous female stars offered condoms

By Damien Gayle and Rick Dewsbury

PUBLISHED: 02:45 EST, 19 July 2012 | UPDATED: 08:07 EST, 19 July 2012



You'd think they might want to save their energy.

But it seems that Olympic athletes will be working up more of a sweat off the field than they will on it this Summer.

In a sign of what the world's fittest sportsmen and women get up to in the Olympic village, a record 150,000 free condoms - 15 for each competitor - have been made available to them.

The phenomenal outpouring of prophylactics means there will be 50 per cent more available to athletes in London than the 100,000 handed out at the last Olympics in Beijing in 2008.


Sprint cyclist Victoria Pendleton is one of the most glamorous of the British athletes


Bicycle babes: Cyclist Jess Varnish said she would pose naked if she was as glamorous as her gold medal champion colleague Victoria Pendleton, right
Brazilian cycling champions Juliana Felisberta Silva, left, and Larissa Franca, will set pulses rising when they compete
'Olympic secret': U.S. womens' football star Hope Solo,said there was a lot of sex going on when she took part in the Beijing Olympics in 2008 while teammate Heather Mitt, right, was voted sexiest woman player by Playboy Online and Hottest Female Athlete by ESPN.com

'I've seen people having sex out in the open, getting down and dirty on grass between buildings.'

She added: 'I may have snuck a celebrity into my Beijing room without anybody knowing and snuck him back out. But that's my Olympic secret.'

Bikini stars: British beach volleyball players Shauna Mullin and Zara Dampney, left, will be taking part at the Games as will Spanish player Andrea Garcia Gonzalo, right


Earlier this month an anonymous U.S. athlete described partying her 'butt off' when she took part in the Games, amid wave of promiscuity as super-fit athletes paired off.



I was feeling super-guilty for cheating on my boyfriend,' she told the New York Post. 'And a fellow athlete said, "Why? Everyone hooked up last night".'

A tell-all expose published earlier this year echoed the anonymous athlete's experiences. That book, the authors of which also remain unknown, lifted the lid on the secrets of the Olympic Village.



Intimate: Jenna Randall, 22, right, tweeted a photo of herself sitting by the pool, with her legs wrapped around teammate Katie Skelton, left

Raunchy: Australian swimmer Stephanie Rice landed in hot water after posting a kinky picture of herself online, left, in 2008 and this June after Tweeting a shot of herself in a skimpy bikini

It is a promise that is easily kept, given the high-security, walled off community they spend the duration of the Games living in, protected from prying eyes.

Competitors sexual appetites seem to have soared since Seoul 1988, when just 8,500 condoms were made available.

For Barcelona in 1992, that number leapt up to 50,000. In the 2000 Sydney Olympics, organisers had to order 20,000 more after the initial allocation of 70,000 ran out.

However, the bed hopping may be slightly less frenetic with the London Games, since this year athletes' partners will also be allowed into the Olympic Village for the first time.


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... -EACH.html

Tribe Fan in SC/Cali wrote:Just a note that tonight is the 43rd anniversary of the death of Mary Jo Kopechne in Ted Kennedy's car off the east side of Martha's Vineyard. July 18, 1969.

History recaps rarely note that Neil Armstrong and crew were hurtling toward a date with destiny on the moon when Kennedy was partying and drove off the bridge with a campaign phone girl. The lunar module landed on the moon on July 20, 1969.

Next year will unbelievably (for me) be the 50th anniversary of the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQhcOUogECA

Can you imagine what would happen if that occured today and not over 40 years ago. The 24 hr news channels and right wing radio would have never let up.

seagull wrote:Can you imagine what would happen if that occured today and not over 40 years ago. The 24 hr news channels and right wing radio would have never let up.

I was already paying attention to politics in those days, and Ted Kennedy did take a beating from all the evening news channels. Few if any, of both parties, accepted his story about "a wrong turn" and his "exhausting swims" of the channels between Martha's Vineyard and Chappaquiddick that delayed his reporting of the accident until the next day. The Kennedy Family always touted their water prowess and his story did not float with most.

Everyone boiled it down to the fact he was a married man, a US Senator, at the least used extremely poor judgment being alone in the car with a young girl in those circumstances that resulted in her death.

The primary reason the public at all gave Ted Kennedy a free pass stemmed from the family tragedies he had endured to that time, more than just the assassinations of his brothers. People begrudging gave him a break figuring that anyone who had endured what he had might have some drunken induced errors in judgment.