The REAL Mama Cass

Cass Elliot and her real-life mother, Bess Cohen, on the 1973 television special, Don't Call Me Mama Anymore (CBS).

Who came up with the name, The Mamas & The Papas? "Well, our parents had it first," joked Cass Elliot. "They called themsevles Mamas and Papas after we were born, you see, and then we grew up and decided to call ourselves The Mamas & The Papas." Cass Elliot was a "Mama" even before the Mamas & The Papas, and even before becoming a Mama in real life. The adjective "fit" her perfectly. But as she struggled, as a zoftig would-be actress and folk singer, she would ultimately emerge as the quintessential Rock & Roll Mama. In "Make Your Own Kind of Music" read how she attempted to integrate Mama Cass, the commerical pop icon, with Cass Elliot the singer/actress who originally struck out a career in show-business, and Ellen Cohen, the Jewish girl from Baltimore. Told in the words of her bandmates, and Elliot herself, the book documents her career from her first stage appearance in high-school Summer Stock to the top of the charts with The Mamas & The Papas, her personal career triumph on the famed stage of The London Palladium, and her sudden and untimely death.

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