Maria Cole, widow of Nat King Cole, passes, was she a JW

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  • designs
    designs

    A talented singer in her own right she sang with the Benny Carter, Count Basie and the Duke Ellington Bands. She was 89.

    I remember her TV show in the late 1960s with Stan Bohrman. They once hosted a JW District Overseer, Angelo Manera, in which they discussed the JW stand on blood transfusions. It was believed at the time that she had studied with JWs but I don't think it went beyond that unless someone knows.

    Maria and Nat were both involved in the early Civil Rights Movement and his TV show The Nat King Cole Show, 1956-57, was groundbreaking. Sponsors received so much hate mail that the popular show had to cancel. In 1948 the Cole's bought a home in the exclusive Hancock Park neighborhood in Los Angeles and were protested by their new neighbors. They toured Europe extensively were they found audiences more open and not like the prejudices and segregation of America.

    She is survived by her three daughters singer Natalie, Timolin, and Casey.

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