Owen Elliot-Kugell, daughter of singer Mama Cass, said her mom didn’t really choke to death on a ham sandwich.
“There was a ham sandwich, but she didn’t eat it and she didn’t choke on it. So enough with the jokes,” she said. The rumored cause of death has been the butt of jokes, including in the popular comedy “Austin Powers” (1997), for decades.
Ellen Cohen went by the stage name Cass Elliot and was called “Mama Cass” early in her career. She rose to fame as a member of the singing group the Mamas & the Papas and performed hit songs including “California Dreamin,'” “Monday, Monday,” and “Words of Love” in the late 1960s.
Elliot received the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary (R&R) Performance for “Monday, Monday” in 1967.
Elliot-Kugell is releasing a memoir, “My Mama, Cass,” ahead of the 50th anniversary of Elliot’s death on July 29. She dispelled the myth of the ham sandwich in her new book.
“Even as a little girl, when I was hanging out with my friends at school, they didn’t know who my mom was, but I would go home to have playdates with some of these kids and it was kind of frequent that one of their parents would make a comment to me like, ‘Hey, did your mom really die choking on a ham sandwich?’” Elliot-Kugel said, per BBC.
She continued, “It bothered me because it was such a horrible story, and I knew that it wasn’t true. And it just felt so cruel to have a rumor like that perpetuated. It tortured me.”
Elliot-Kugel did a lot of research to determine what happened on the day her mom died ath the age of 32. She said the singer had a jam-packed day and did have a ham sandwich on a plate in her apartment but apparently never took a bite. Elliot-Kugel discovered that her mother’s friend, Sue Cameron, who was a journalist, came up with the story to help avoid other rumors at the request of her manager, Allan Carr.
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“So many of her peers had passed away due to drug overdoses that Carr really wanted to protect her. And there was a sandwich that was found there,” Elliot-Kugel explained.
She added, “Allan Carr wanted to protect his client’s legacy and in a weird way it did. So now I understand, and it makes sense.”
According to the autopsy, the singer died from a heart attack and had no drugs in her system.
Mama Cass struggled with her weight and obesity for her whole life, often going on crash diets and taking drugs to lose weight. Her daughter said she’s proud of what her mom achieved despite being heavier than many of her contemporaries.
Elliot-Kugel said the singer “pursued and persevered until she made it.”
“She knew when she was a teenager that she wanted to be a performer and told everybody that she was going to be the most famous fat girl that ever lived. She had that forethought of knowledge as a child. I think that’s pretty cool. I think that’s really cool,” she said.