Rosemary Clooney, a chart-topping "girl singer" who became one of Hollywood's biggest celebrities of the 1950s, died on Saturday night in her Beverly Hills mansion due to complications from lung cancer, her publicist said. She was 74.
Clooney shot to fame with a string of of hits in the 1950s including "Come On-A My House" and "Mambo Italiano" and co-starred opposite Bing Crosby in the 1954 classic movie "White Christmas."
After virtually quitting music during a troubled period in the late 1960s, she reemerged in the 1980s, endearing herself to a new generation of music fans and a landing a recurring role on hospital drama "ER" opposite nephew George Clooney.
Born in Maysville, Kentucky in 1928, Clooney had a hardscrabble childhood clouded by the separation of her parents and lived much of the time with relatives.
By the time she was 21, Clooney had signed with Columbia Records. In 1951, she scored a mega-hit with "Come On A My House," something of a novelty song about an Armenian peasant seeking a man.
The million-selling record, which Clooney had initially resisted in favor of ballads, featured lyrics by author William Saroyan and music by his cousin, Ross Bagdasarian, who created "The Chipmunks".
A Hollywood career followed for Clooney with roles in musicals such as "The Stars Are Shining," and "White Christmas," a classic also starring Danny Kaye and Vera Ellen.
What followed was a dark period that culminated in a public and harrowing collapse for the singer that collaborator and lifelong friend Frank Sinatra had praised as "a symbol of good modern American music."
In 1968, fighting an escalating addiction to painkillers, she stormed off stage in Reno, Nevada, part of a pattern of erratic behavior that prompted her hospitalisation for what was later diagnosed as drug-induced psychosis.
"I felt trapped and fabricated in the fifties living up to other people's expectations," she recalled later.
After a long period of semi-retirement, Clooney returned to the stage in 1976 in an anniversary concert with Crosby that became a reunion tour and marked the start of her critically heralded return.
A longtime smoker, Clooney underwent cancer surgery at the Mayo Clinic in January to remove part of her left lung. Infections delayed her recovery and she remained hospitalized until May, but had planned to resume performing.
Clooney is survived by her five children - Miguel, Maria, Gabriel, Monsita and Rafael - her husband, Dante Di Paolo, and her grandchildren.