Maria Cole, the widow of singer Nat King Cole and mother of singer Natalie Cole, died of cancer this week at age 89, her family disclosed Thursday.
Cole, an accomplished jazz singer who was married to Nat King Cole for 17 years before his death from lung cancer in 1965, died at a hospice in Boca Raton, Fla., on Tuesday surrounded by family.
In a statement, nine-time Grammy Award-winning singer and songwriter Natalie Cole and twin siblings Timolin and Casey Cole said their mother was "in a class all by herself.
"She epitomized class, elegance, and truly defined what it is to be a real lady," said the statement distributed to news outlets. "We are so blessed and privileged to have inherited the legacy that she leaves behind along with our father. She died how she lived -- with great strength, courage and dignity, surrounded by her loving family."
Four days before her death, on July 6, Natalie Cole tweeted: "On my way back to Florida - Mom is fading fast....please pray for the family!"
In her most recent tweet, Natalie Cole said, "I just want to thank everyone for their prayers & loving support. Mum has passed, gone to Glory...She will be next to Dad at Forest Lawn." Maria Cole will be buried in Glendale, Calif.
She was born in Boston but the early part of her life was spent in North Carolina. According to Billboard, she took voice and piano lessons as a child and eventually moved to Boston and sang with a jazz orchestra. She later moved to New York to pursue a music career with jazz great Benny Carter's band. She also performed briefly with Count Basie.
The family said Duke Ellington heard recordings of their mother's singing and hired her as a vocalist with his orchestra. She performed with Ellington until 1946, when she began a solo act at New York's Club Zanzibar, where she also opened for the Mills Brothers. It was also at the Zanzibar that she met Nat King Cole, whose hits would eventually include "When I Fall In Love", "Ramblin' Rose", "Mona Lisa" and "Unforgettable".
They were married in Harlem on Easter Sunday in 1948. She traveled with her husband throughout the 1950s and recorded several songs with him for Capitol Records.
Natalie Cole was the couple's firstborn, in 1950. She was followed by the late Nat Kelly Cole, who was adopted in 1959, and twins Timolin and Casey, who were born in 1961. Maria and Nat King Cole also adopted another child in 1949, Carol (known as "Cookie"), the daughter of Maria Cole's late sister.
Though estranged from her husband, who was a heavy smoker, by the time of his lung cancer diagnoses and failing health, Maria Cole remained at his at his side until he succumbed to the disease.
In one inteview after her husband's death, Maria Cole said, "Nat was a very humble man. I don't think he ever realized what a great international talent he had become."
Maria Cole kept her husband's music legacy alive and created the charitable Cole Cancer Foundation. She produced James Baldwin's play "Amen Corner" on Broadway in 1965. In 1971, she published a book about her husband, "Nat King Cole: An Intimate Biography", which was co-authored by Louie Robinson. In 1987, she and singer Johnny Mathis starred in a PBS tribute to Nat King Cole.
Maria and Natalie Cole accepted a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award for their husband and father in 1990.
Maria Cole's first husband, Spurgeon Ellington, was a Tuskegee Airman who served during World War II but was killed in Georgia during a routine postwar training flight. After her marriage to Nat King Cole, she was also briefly married to TV producer Gary Devore.
In an Ebony article, Maria Cole was quoted as saying about her life, "Not everyone may want my particular style of life, but if they do, I want them to know that it's something you have to work very hard to get and manage very wisely to keep."
Complete funeral arrangements were pending Thursday.
The Associated Press contributed to this report
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