This seems like the right place to post it.
Mama Cass Elliot would have been 59 today. (For those under 35 her real name was Ellen Naomi Cohen and she teamed with the group the Mamas and the Papas to let loose with a string of hits including “California Dreamin” and “Monday, Monday.”)
According to Wireless Flash, a DJ service, Mama Cass died in London of a heart attack–not by choking on a ham sandwich. Officials did find a ham sandwich near Elliot, but the medical examiner confirmed the singer died of a heart attack.
HOWEVER that ham sandwich rumor has become an
Urban Legend. And it spawned morbid jokes, as in…“If Mama Cass had given Karen Carpenter that sandwich they’d both be alive today.” etc. etc.