Montreal was once home to a show business star who commuted to New York City to host a weeknight network prime-time TV variety show and later fronted a band with members who ended up in the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame.
Marianne Bott was born in Detroit in 1934, in a family of nine kids. She won the Miss New York City beauty pageant in 1951 but was forced to surrender her title after it was revealed that she hadn't lived in the city long enough to qualify.
Sandu Scott, as she now called herself, headed to Miami, took singing lessons and joined a chorus line and was linked romantically to Marlon Brando
Sandu Scott did some Broadway and by 1955 had visited Montreal to sing live in a variety of nightclubs like the Bellevue Casino, Hale Hakala, Copacabana and Down Beat.
By this point she was familiar with Montreal nightclub owner Solomon Schnapp, known as Solly Silver, who frequently scouted acts for his Chez Paree nightclub on Stanley Street, which he purchased in 1954.
Scott found herself busy performing on some ABC TV shows from 1955 but mostly she did her act in clubs like the Chez paree where she appeared in 1956 before touring the States and England leading a syndicated gossip columnist to romatnically link her to effeminate British actor George Sanders.
Sandu Scott instead married Solly Silver in October 1956. Silver had some mob ties but mostly stayed out of trouble, as his Montreal nightclubs included the Chez Paree, Esquire Show bar and Peppermint Lounge.
Sandu Scott got the call to host Anything Goes in late 1959, an ABC variety show that went up against the popular Jack Parr. She returned to Montreal on weekends.
Meanwhile Silver's nightclub empire was undergoing some issues, as the Chez Parree was ransacked by thugs in 1960. Silver minimized the damages and Mafia boss Frank Cotronti - who paid cops to look away - was only forced to pay $200 in fines.
Sandu Scott's marriage to Solly Silver did not last long as one newspaper reported in 1961 that shehgad been absent from Montreal for some time.
In 1962 Sandu Met Marco Von Nesselhauf former president of Caracas Hilton Hotels, who she married in early 1965
But Sandu Scott remained a Montreal stage staple nonetheless, as she'd regularly perform at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel, doing such lounge numbers as "Mon beau chapeau," "Le petit gonzales" and the Denny Vaughan composition "Montreal is a wonderful town."
Silver apparently had no hard feelings about his wife and kept helping her with her career. In January 1964 Sandu shared a bill with a young rock band of Vermont in Glens Falls, New York and persuaded them to become her backing band. She changed from a lounge act to a rock act.
Sandu and her Scotties put out a couple of songs. Silver put in a word to his New York friends and got them on the Ed Sullivan Christmas show of December 20, 1964. The band joined her to perform at the Queen Elizabeth in May 1964 but broke up soon after, as one said that he felt like a dog act. Singer Felix and drummer Dino went on to form the Young Rascals, who had a string of hits that got them inducted into the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame in 1997.
By 1967 Sandy Scott was out of show business, living with her husband Von Nesselhauf in Puerto Rico, where they raised horses. "I'm so wrapped up in horses I don't have time to be a frustrated actress."
She died in 1986, aged 52. Solly Silver died oct 1999, neither had kids.
George Sanders "effeminate?" Some would disagree. He was, after all, married to Zsa Zsa Gabor once, something that would necessitate some endurance.
ReplyDeleteThis was my Aunt Marianne! Whenever she visited us when she was back in Michigan (not very often) I remember being so awestruck by her glamor. (Uncle Sol scared the life out of me when I was a kid, for whatever reason, I don't know.) The one time she was on the Ed Sullivan Show my mom let me stay up past my bedtime to watch her. She got very bad medical advice in Venezuela about her breast cancer and by the time she tried to get treatment in the US, it was too late. She died way too young. I have her mink coat, which she gave to me mom, who gave it to me. Thank you for this post.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the input. Someone said that the photo I used for Silver was not the right person but I believe it is. Any idea?
DeleteI will say that he doesn't look like my memory of him, but of course that is 60 years old. He looked to me more like Zachary Scott -- thin mustache, handsomer than this guy. I'll ask my aunt, the youngest Bott child, if she has a picture of Sol.
DeleteMy father had a nightclub for a while with Solly Silver called the Peppermint Lounge, inside the famous Monyument Nationale building on the Main near Dorch. Solly got irritated when my dad purchased the building and would make a point sitting with his eyes on the door when he went out to restaurants thereafter. My mom thought this was silly but my father might have had reason to think Silver might've wanted him dead.
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