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 the record in the fall of 1966, playing a series of precarious and reportedly bizarre shows. At a September 1966 concert at Fordham University in New York City, the band was noted by Gus Duffy and Jim Mason of their co-headlining band, Webster's New Word, as being clearly "high, drunk, or tripping. When they got on stage, it was clear that these people shouldn't be on stage ... They tumbled onto the stage, shambled around, and just got nowhere. After completing their brief East coast tour, the group started work immediately on its third album, "The Mamas & The Papas