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 below). An alcoholic through the 1960s and 1970s, Doherty recovered in the early 1980s and stayed sober for the remainder of his life.In 1996, he was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame. Doherty answered John Phillips' PBS documentary with the autobiographical stage musical "Dream a Little Dream (the Nearly True Story of the Mamas and the Papas)", which he wrote with Paul Ledoux and performed sporadically, starting in Halifax in 1997, and eventually reaching the off-Broadway Village Theater in New York in 2003. The original cast recording – featuring Doherty and supporting band – was released by Lewlacow