From the MCRFB NEWS archive: 1965
Family, Friends, Industry Bids Farewell to a Music Giant
LOS ANGELES – Some 400 friends and relatives of Nat King Cole attended funeral services at St. James Church here (Thursday) (18) in a final tribute to the artist who died of lung cancer Monday (15) at St. John’s Hospital, Santa Monica. Another 3,000 persons waited outside the Episcopal church.
A caravan of limousines brought such celebrities as Jack Benny, Frank Sinatra, Jerry Lewis, Edie Adams, Gene Barry, Jose Ferrer, Rosemary Clooney, Danny Thomas, Vic Ramone, Sammy Davis, Eddie Rochester) Anderson, Frankie Laine and George Jessel to the church.
When the silver hearse pulled up to the church, pallbearers of the bronze coffin included James Conkling, former president of Warner Bros. Records; Glenn Wallichs, chairman of the board of Capitol Records; Harold Plant, the artist’s business manager, and Henry Miller, his agent.
Jack Benny, who delivered the eulogy, called Cole “a great professional who gave so much and had so much to give.” He added: “Here I stand, a man granted so many years of life, good health, a measure of contentment, delivering a eulogy for a man whose span of life was so short. Nat Cole was an institution, a tremendous success as an entertainer, but an even greater success as a man, husband, father and friend.”
After the funeral services, the procession proceeded to Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale for brief interment ceremonies.
Honorary pallbearers included Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, Jack Benny, Ricardo Montalban, George Burns, Nelson Riddle, Gordon Jenkins, Peter Lawford, Edward G. Robinson, Gov. Edmund G. Brown of California, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy of New York and Count Basie. Cole leaves his widow, Mrs.
Maria Cole; a son, Kelly, and four daughters, Timolin and Casey (twins), and Carol and Natalie. He also leaves two brothers, Edward and Fred, and a sister, Evelyn. END
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Information and news source: Billboard; February 27, 1965
Nat was possibly the greatest pop and jazz musician of the 20th century!