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 to the stage, making a disastrous start in John Phillips' "Man on the Moon" (1975). In 1977, he returned to his birthplace, Halifax, Nova Scotia, and started playing legitimate roles, including Shakespeare, at the Neptune Theatre under the tutelage of John Neville. This led to television work, beginning with a variety program, "Denny's Sho*", which ran for one season in 1978. He went on to host and voice parts in the children's program, "Theodore Tugboat", and to act in various series, including twenty-two episodes of the drama "Pit Pony". Doherty also performed with the New Mamas and the Papas (see