"Mama" Cass Elliott had one of the most powerful voices in '60s music. But sadly, her career was cut short in 1974 when she died at age 32. Born Ellen Naomi Cohen, Elliott first worked with Denny Doherty in a band called The Mugwumps. The two of them would gradually join forces with John and Michelle Phillips to create The Mamas and the Papas. Elliott was extremely talented, but she also faced many negative comments about her weight, including from her bandmates. It was ultimately her constant attempts at crash dieting that killed her. Here are the details of the tragic death of The Mamas and the Papas' Cass Elliott.
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00:00The Mamas and the Papas were icons of the 60s music scene. They were four young people who
00:05rose out of the folk era to create songs that captured the public's ear and held tight.
00:10John Phillips, his then-wife Michelle Phillips,
00:13Denny Doherty, and Cass Elliott found their way into each other's artistic circle and soared.
00:18Though each of the four members would go on to create art in one fashion or another — John
00:23Phillips and Doherty in music, Michelle more focused on acting — arguably, it was Elliott
00:28who had the longest impact on popular culture even today. And that made her sudden loss at
00:34such a young age an even bigger tragedy. The woman who would become Mama Cass Elliott was
00:39born Ellen Naomi Cohen in Baltimore, Maryland, on September 19, 1941. Her mother had been a
00:46professional singer, and her father was devoted to opera. By the time she was 19,
00:50Cass was performing in the Washington, D.C. area. Cass eventually joined forces with Denny Doherty
00:56and others to form yet another group, The Mugwumps. When that band broke up, Denny began
01:01to work with John and Michelle, and Cass wanted to be part of what was becoming a solid singing group.
01:06She actually followed them to performances, and finally, John, the composer and arranger,
01:11relented. Cass soared in their cover of 1931's Dream a Little Dream of Me and other recordings.
01:17In what our more enlightened times would call a cut-and-dried case of fat-shaming,
01:22John was reluctant to allow Cass to perform onstage.
01:25In John's eyes, Cass had a great voice, but she was also, well, chubby. In her obituary,
01:32Rolling Stone quoted Cass as saying,
01:34"...I've been fat since I was seven."
01:36She might have proudly carried her weight, but it clearly bothered her,
01:39as did jokes and comments by the media. As Cass' daughter, Owen, told The Guardian,
01:44"...the National Association for Fat Awareness made my mom their diva. I don't totally agree
01:49with that. She accepted who she was, a sexy woman, who was never short of boyfriends,
01:54but I think if she could have been thinner, she would have."
01:57"...Well, you know, as long as people think like that, they're right."
02:00By 1968, the mamas and the papas had fractured, and Cass explored other opportunities.
02:06She went on to record solo, producing a series of now-standard pop songs,
02:10including Make Your Own Kind of Music. She also toured and scored steady gigs on TV
02:15variety shows, both as a guest and as host. Throughout the success, though,
02:19her weight continued to trouble her. She tried to get slim repeatedly without long-term success.
02:25Cass tackled various dieting regimes, most of them ultimately harmful.
02:30She was 5 feet 5 inches and topped out at around 300 pounds.
02:34When she booked a series of engagements at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas,
02:38she set off on a six-month crash diet plan. She did manage to lose over 100 pounds,
02:44but she also ended up hospitalized. In the short term, she damaged her stomach and throat.
02:49The long-term damage was more subtle, and ultimately more deadly.
02:54Simply put, everyone in the scientific community agrees that crash diets work only very temporarily.
03:00Because of the sudden, extreme reduction in calorie intake, an individual's metabolism slows,
03:06immune systems are compromised, and damage to the cardiac system is almost inevitable
03:11through the loss of muscle tissue as the body essentially goes into starvation mode,
03:15consuming itself in the absence of food intake. Nutritionist Dr. Lindo Bacon pointed out that
03:21long-term calorie cutting can eventually lead to heart muscle loss. Dr. Bacon said,
03:26Yo-yo dieting can also damage your blood vessels. All that shrinking and growing
03:30causes micro-tears that create a setup for types of heart disease.
03:35In the case of Cass Elliot, at least once, she kept up seven months of fasting four days per
03:40week. It was surely a significant weight loss for Cass, but too quickly and with too high a cost.
03:46She had just completed a concert series in London at the Palladium when she died on July 29, 1974.
03:53Somehow, the press latched onto the completely untrue rumor that she'd choked to death on a
03:58ham sandwich, continuing to mock her appearance even in death. In reality, Mama Cass Elliot
04:05actually died of a massive heart attack in her sleep. The Guardian quoted pathologist Keith
04:09Simpson, who said,
04:10There was left-sided heart failure. She had a heart attack which developed rapidly.
04:15Tragically, it's highly probable that the fatal weakness of her heart was a direct result of her
04:20severe dieting practices over the years. Weight loss also meant loss of muscle, including heart
04:25muscle, meaning her death was in many ways a result of the lifetime of fat-shaming she had
04:30been subjected to. Cass Elliot was just 32 years old. Her recordings still get airplay today and
04:36feature in commercials and film soundtracks. And those who actually knew her consistently
04:41described her as funny, intelligent, informed, and thoughtful, committed to her art, and committed to
04:47her daughter. It's that commitment and her unequaled voice that people still remember nearly
04:5250 years after her death.