Cass Elliot and Keith Moon died in the same apartment

        

A former work colleague of mine was travelling in Europe and he posted photos of this London apartment on Facebook.  He explained that Mama Cass Elliot of The Mamas and the Papas and Keith Moon of The Who both died there, four years apart.  I was unaware of this, and I became curious.  I decided to do more research.  

The apartment is located on the corner of Curzon St and Curzon Square, in the Mayfair area of London.  At the time of her passing, Cass Elliot occupied Flat 12, owned by American pop star Harry Nilsson.  The flat was Cass Elliot's temporary home in the city.  When Nilsson purchased the place in the 1970s, its location was ideal for him, because of its proximity to Apple Records (he was a good friend of the Beatles).  There were also nearby nightclubs frequented by celebrities.  However, the singer-songwriter was often on the road in the United States.  He rarely had a chance to spend time at his London home, so he rented it out to his musician friends.

When Cass Elliot was found dead in her London flat on July 29, 1974, rumours quickly spread that she had choked on a ham sandwich.  It was later revealed that the 32-year-old singer had passed away in her sleep, and her death was ruled accidental.  On August 5, 1974, Dr. Keith Simpson, a British pathologist, and Gavin Thurston, a London coroner, issued a report that ruled out the theory that Cass had choked on a sandwich.  They found that there was no food in her windpipe, and no drugs in her system at the time of her passing. Simpson's autopsy revealed that her death was due to a "left-sided heart failure" and that she had suffered "a heart attack which developed rapidly.  Cass had been overweight her whole life, and her crash diets likely weakened her heart.

Cass Elliot

Born Ellen Naomi Cohen in Baltimore, Maryland on September 19, 1941, Casa rose to fame with the hippie era California-based folk rock vocal group the Mamas and the Papas.  The Mamas and the Papas performed and recorded from 1965 to 1968.  The group had a brief reunion in 1971 with the album People Like Us, but split up again soon after the album was released. 

The Mamas and the Papas consisted of Americans John Phillips, Cass Elliot, Michelle Phillips, and Canadian Denny Doherty.  The songwriter and leader of the group was John Phillipa.  It was Phillips who arranged the group's vocal harmonies.  The quartet was enormously successful in the turbulent 1969s,  It released five studio albums and 17 singles, six of which made the Billboard top ten, producing such hits as "California Dreamin', "Monday, Monday" and "Dedicated to the One I Love."

Cass Elliot was the last member to join the Mamas and the Papas.  Cass had been Doherty's bandmate with the Mugwumps, an American group formed in New York City in 1964.  The group had released one single before breaking up in late 1964.  Despite her association with Doherty, Cass did not have an easy time in joining the Mamas and the Papas.  John Phillips, had reservations about her becoming a member of the group.  Phillips was deeply concerned that her voice was too low for his arrangements, that her obesity would be a detriment to the band's success, and that her personality was incompatible with his.  Somehow, Cass overcame those obstacles and joined the group.

In May of 1968, the Mamas and the Papas released an album entitled The Papas & The Mamas.  It was the band's first album not to go gold or reach the top 10 in the United States.  Against John Phillip's wishes,  Dunhill Records decided to release Cass's solo from the album, a remake of "Dream a Little Dream of Me," as a single credited to "Mama Cass with the Mamas & the Papas.  The song reached No. 12 in the United States and No. 11 in the United Kingdom.

Mama and the Papa on Ed Sullivan Show 1967

Cass's death came just after she had established herself as a solo artist.  Her goal had been to rid herself of her "Big Mama" image.  After years of struggle, she was finally on the way to achieving her objective.  She was shifting her image from "Mama Cass" to Cass Elliot.  In fact, the last album she released before her death was entitled Don't Call Me Mama Anymore (September, 1973).

     

On that fateful July 27, 1974, Cass had just completed a successful two-week stint at London's Palladium, where she had received nightly standing ovations.  Her stage manager, Bobby Roberts, stated that that "was one of her lifetime ambitions."  Producer Lou Adler recalled her final performance.  "She was really up," he said.  "She felt she was opening a new career, she'd finally got together an act she felt good doing - not prostituting herself, but middle-of-the road people enjoyed it and she enjoyed doing it."  Sadly, Cass passed away just as she was hitting her stride.  In London, she had enjoyed the taste of a successful solo career, but it was not destined to be long term.  

In 1978, Keith Moon, the eccentric drummer for The Who, occupied the flat where Cass had died four years previously  Harry Nillson was initially reluctant to grant Moon's request to use the flat because he apparently considered the place to be 'cursed.'  However, Who guitarist Pete Townshend convinced Nillson that lightning doe not strike twice in the same place."  As it turned out, Moon died in the very same bed in which Cass Elliot had passed away.  The 32-year-old British rock star was also the same age that Cass had been at the time of her death.  

Keith Moon

On September 7, 1978, Keith Moon and his girlfriend , Annette Walker-Lax returned home after attending a midnight showing of the film The Buddy Holly Story at the Odeon, Leicester Square. 

They were guests of Paul McCartney, who had  purchased the international rights to more than 40 of Holly's songs.  Inside the cinema, Keith was agitated.  He was restless.  According to Annette, he wanted to leave an hour into the movie.  

Moon, had long struggled with alcohol abuse.  Ironically, the cause of his death was an overdose of  clomethiazole, a prescription drug intended to treat or prevent symptoms of alcohol withdrawal.  A month prior to the rock star's death, The Who released Who Are You, the group's first new album in years.  However, Keith's drinking and drug use had affected his performance and his appearance.  On the cover photograph of the album, he posed in a a way that his paunch was concealed.  Due to their drummer's condition, The Who were in no position to tour, which left him feeling anxious.

Annette spoke to Tony Fletcher, author of Keith's biography, Moon: The Life and Death of a Rock Legend, about the night he died.  She remembered Keith "taking his usual glass of water and bucket of pills" before falling asleep about 4 a.m.  Moon had been taking more than his prescribed dose of clomethiazole, in the manner he generally abused drugs.  Annette did not realize quite how many pills of the powerful sedative he was consuming

According to Annette, Keith awakened at 7:30 a.m. and asked for food.  He was in a foul mood and they argued.  Nevertheless, Annette served him some lamb.  After finishing his meal, Moon ingested some more clomethiazole and fell asleep again.  Annette was disturbed by his snoring, so she slept on the sofa.  When she returned to the bedroom, she discovered Moon lying on his stomach with his left arm hanging over the side of the bed.  "I couldn't hear him breathing," she told Fletcher.  "Right there and then I knew something was wrong.  I went into a panic."  Annette phoned Dr. Geoffrey Dymond, the physician who had prescribed the  clomethiazole.  Dr. Dymond called an ambulance, but it was too late.  Keith had been dead for some time, but it wasn't until 5:50 p.m. that he was officially pronounced dead.

On Moon's death certificate, the official cause of death was listed as "Clomethiazole overdose, self-administered but no evidence of intention."  It was later revealed that Keith had had 26 undissolved clomethiazole tablets in his body when he passed away.  

Harry Nilsson was truly devasted by the deaths of his two friends, Cass Elliot and Keith Moon, at his apartment.  Nilsson felt that he could no longer live at that  'cursed'' flat, so he sold the place and and moved permanently to Los Angeles.  The buyer was none other than Pete Townshend, Keith Moon's bandmate with The Who.

It seems to me that Cass Elliot and Keith Moon were like bombs waiting to go off, Cass with her obesity and Keith with his alcoholism and drug abuse.  It happened that the bombs went off in the same place.

END NOTES

* Cass Elliot's daughter, Owen Elliot-Kugell wrote a memoir of the life and death of her mother.  The book is entitled My Mama, Cass.  It was published in May of 2024 by Hachette Books, 50 years after Cass's death.  After Cass's passing, her daughter Owen was raised by Cass's sister, Leah Cohen, and her husband, drummer Russ Kunkel.

Born on April 26, 1967, Owen was just seven years old when Cass die.  She was unable to spend much time with her mother, but she is dedicated to making sure that Cass's life and her musical legacy are not forgotten.  

For years, Owen had to endure jokes and innuendo that her mother died after choking on a ham sandwich.  In the course of researching her book, Owen spoke to her mother's close friend Sue Cameron.  It was Cameron who had written in her book Hollywood Secrets and Scandals that Cass had died from choking on a ham sandwich.  

Cameron revealed to Owen that she had called Cass's London apartment and had spoken to her manager Allan Carr, who told her that Cass had died.  Carr was upset and in a panic.  According to Cameron, he said, "There's a half=eaten sandwich on the nightstand.  You have to do this.  Just say she died choking on the sandwich." Carr wanted to counter any other rumours that might arise, especially concerning drugs.  So many of Cass's contemporaries, such as Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison. had died from drug overdoses.  Owen believes that "Allan was afraid they'd make the same assumption" about Cass. Although no drugs were discovered in Cass's at the time of her death, Owen isn't certain that earlier drug use didn't play a part in her mother's untimely demise.

If she were alive today, Cass Elliot would be a grandmother.  In 1991, Owen married Grammy-nominated songwriter and producer Jack Kugell.  They have two children, a son Noah and a daughter Zoe.  They reside in the San Fernando Valley in California.

* On October 22, 2022, Cass was given a posthumous star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.  The ceremony was attended by her daughter Owen.

* The Mamas and the Papas were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998.  The group  reunited for the second and final to perform at the induction ceremony.  Own filled in for her deceased mother.

* John Phillips passed away in 2001 at the age of 65.  Denny Doherty died in 2007 at the age of 66,  Michelle Phillips, born June 4, 1944, is the only surviving member of the Mamas and the Papas..

* In early 2023, Cass's 1969 song "Make Your Own Kind of Music" went viral on TikTok.

* In 2011, Rolling Stone readers voted Keith Moon the second-greatest drummer in history.  In 1990, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of The Who.

SOURCES:  ati (allthatsnteresting.com), "The Truth About :'Mama' Cass Elliot's Death And The Urban Legend That Followed," by Marco Margaritoff, October 14, 2021, updated March 8, 2024;  Living London History (livinglondonhistory.com), "Death in Mayfair: The 'Cursed' Flat Of Curzon Square," December 8, 2021; People magazine, "All About Cass Elliot's Daughter Owen Elliot Kugeel, by Kara Nesvig, May 1,  2024; Louder (loudersound.com), "What really happened the night Keith Mood died?" by Mark Blake, September 6, 2022; Wikipedia

- Joanne