Sophie Tucker lung cancer and kidney failure on February 9, 1966, aged 79, in New York City. She had continued working until the months before her death, playing shows at the Latin Quarter just weeks before. She is buried in Emanuel Cemetery, in Wethersfield, Connecticut, her home state. Tucker's comic and singing styles are credited with influencing later female entertainers including Mae West, Rusty Warren, Carol Channing, Totie Fields, Joan Rivers, Roseanne Barr, Ethel Merman, "Mama" Cass Elliot of The Mamas & the Papas, and most notably Bette Midler, who has included "Soph" as one of her many stage characters. She also
The Mamas & the Papas cartoon". In 1998 the lineup was Phillips, Scott McKenzie, Chrissy Faith, David Baker and Janelle Sadler. After Phillips and McKenzie retired permanently from touring, another singer, Mark Williamson, was brought in. Phillips wanted the New Mamas and the Papas to make an album, "but I just couldn't bring myself to commit to it". Varèse Sarabande released the 1981 demos with other material as "Many Mamas, Many Papas" in 2010. Beyond that, the band is represented on record only by live albums of uncertain provenance, including "The Mamas and the Papas Reunion Live" (1987) featuring the Phillips-Doherty-Phillips-McFarlane line-up and released by