59 Fun Facts About Natalie Cole

Natalie Cole's father, Nat King Cole, first found fame in the 1940s as the pianist and leader of what?

A jazz trio: the King Cole Trio's line-up of piano, guitar and bass made him a star before he turned crooner. Natalie at first refused to sing his songs on stage, wanting to succeed under her own name.

What was the title of Natalie Cole's 1975 debut album?

Inseparable was written and produced by two Chicago songwriters who had spotted her club act, and it won her two Grammys.

Natalie Cole was the first African-American act to win which Grammy Award?

Best New Artist went to Cole at the 1976 ceremony along with a second Grammy for her first hit, four years after she left university unsure whether to pursue a singing career at all.

Chuck Jackson and Marvin Yancy shopped Cole's demo to label after label until which company, her father's old home, signed her?

Capitol was her father's label, and she had hoped to sign somewhere else to avoid comparisons with him, but after a string of rejections it was the company that made an offer.

Whose Chicago studio did Cole record her first demos in?

Curtis Mayfield's Curtom studio in Chicago was where her producers cut the demo tape, and label after label turned it down before one finally made an offer.

Which singer, to whom the young Cole was constantly compared, saw her eight-year Grammy winning streak ended by 'This Will Be'?

Aretha Franklin had won Best Female R&B Vocal Performance every year since the award began in 1968, and talk of a 'new Aretha' was said to have started a feud between the two.

Cole's 1990 single 'Wild Women Do' was written for the soundtrack of which hit film?

Pretty Woman's soundtrack opens with 'Wild Women Do', produced by Cole's new husband Andre Fischer, who went on to produce much of her Unforgettable album.

Cole supplied the singing voice of Sawyer, a jaded secretary, in which 1990s animated musical?

Cats Don't Dance gave Sawyer two voices: Jasmine Guy spoke the cat secretary's lines, while Cole sang her songs, including the ballad 'Tell Me Lies'.

Which Lindsay Lohan film closes with Cole's 'This Will Be' playing over wedding photos?

The Parent Trap bookends its story with father and daughter: her father's 'L-O-V-E' plays over the first wedding in the opening titles, and 'This Will Be' over photos of the second.

Which 1976 Cole hit beat her rival's "Something He Can Feel" for the Best Female R&B Vocal Grammy?

Sophisticated Lady, which Cole co-wrote, gave her a second straight win in a category her rival had owned for its first eight years.

Cole's third album Unpredictable went platinum on the strength of which No. 1 R&B hit?

I've Got Love on My Mind topped the soul chart for five weeks, but it could not win Cole a third straight Grammy: Thelma Houston's 'Don't Leave Me This Way' beat it in 1978.

Cole's Emmy-nominated 1992 TV concert lost to which singer's serenade on Johnny Carson's second-to-last Tonight Show?

Bette Midler won for singing 'One for My Baby' to Carson, but the PBS special in which Cole sang her father's songs did not go home empty-handed: it won the Emmy for its director.

With which singer did Cole record the 1979 duet album We're the Best of Friends?

Peabo Bryson made duets his calling card after this album, later pairing with Roberta Flack and with Celine Dion on Disney's 'Beauty and the Beast'.

In which state is Hazelden, the clinic where Cole spent six months getting clean from late 1983?

Minnesota's Hazelden clinic worked where a 30-day rehab stay had not: after that first attempt, Cole said, she 'went right back to my drugs'.

Cole's 1987 comeback album Everlasting featured a dance-pop cover of which Bruce Springsteen song?

Pink Cadillac had been only the B-side of Springsteen's 'Dancing in the Dark' until Cole's version took it into the top five in both the US and UK.

Cole joined Whitney Houston and Stevie Wonder at a 1988 Wembley Stadium concert marking whose 70th birthday?

Nelson Mandela was still in prison, so the party went ahead without its guest of honour while the broadcast carried his name to 67 countries.

Cole sang 'They Can't Take That Away from Me' with which legend on his 1993 album Duets?

Frank Sinatra never met his Duets partners in the studio: each guest sang along to his pre-recorded vocal.

Which 1989 single became Cole's biggest UK hit, reaching No. 2 there?

Miss You Like Crazy topped the R&B and adult contemporary charts at home, yet it climbed higher in Britain, to No. 2, than its No. 7 on the US Hot 100.

While Cole was undergoing her 2009 kidney transplant, which family member died in another hospital?

Her sister Carole, known as Cookie, was in a coma when the transplant centre rang; Cole first told the caller, 'I can't talk to you right now. My sister's dying.'

After the 2008 Grammys, Cole said it 'sends the wrong message' to honour which big winner?

Amy Winehouse won five Grammys that night while battling addiction; Cole, a veteran of rehab, said the awards rewarded 'a young girl who's very ill'.

Cole was the first African-American woman to win which Grammy, for her 1991 tribute to her father?

Album of the Year went to a record her own label had doubted: 'My record company thought I was crazy,' Cole recalled. 'They were like, it'll never sell.'

How was Cole's hit 'Unforgettable' duet with her late father made?

His old vocal was mixed with hers after engineers lifted his voice off the original track and matched her phrasing to it. 'Nothing had been attempted like that,' Cole said.

On her 2006 covers album Leavin', Cole sang 'Old Man', a 1972 hit for which rock veteran?

Neil Young's 'Old Man' followed a Fiona Apple cover on Leavin', an album Cole promoted as a turn away from jazz standards and back to pop and R&B.

About how many copies did Cole's 1991 album of her father's songs sell in the United States?

7 million is the certified figure for an album that startled the trade; stores, Cole said, reported buyers 'who haven't bought a record in 20 years'.

Before music won out, which career did the young Cole tell her father she wanted?

Doctor was the plan she gave him, so he died never knowing she wanted to sing; she dropped the idea after joining a band at college.

Which jazz singer joined Cole on 'Better Than Anything', their Grammy-nominated duet of 2002?

Diana Krall was a natural partner: she had recorded a whole album in tribute to Cole's father, and both women worked with producer Tommy LiPuma.

Cole's 1996 album Stardust featured a second virtual duet with her father on which standard?

When I Fall in Love won the pair a Grammy for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals in 1997, more than three decades after her father's death.

Which 2008 album won Cole the last of her nine Grammys?

Still Unforgettable returned to the songbook 17 years after her biggest hit. Asked why the follow-up took so long, Cole said, 'It takes a long time to chase greatness.'

Where did Cole earn her degree in child psychology in 1972?

UMass Amherst is where she finished the degree after a brief transfer to USC and back, but she never used it: by graduation, performing had become her first love.

At the depth of Cole's addiction in 1982, who went to court and won control of her finances?

Her mother, Maria, stepped in during years when Cole crashed her car while high and her young son nearly drowned in the family pool.

How did Cole describe her famous family, looking back on her Los Angeles childhood?

'The black Kennedys' suited a family that had broken a colour bar: the Coles were the first Black household in their wealthy white enclave, whose property owners tried and failed to block the sale.

Cole's father died of what illness in February 1965, days after her 15th birthday?

Lung cancer killed him at 45, after years of heavy smoking; Cole said losing him then meant she 'never got to make that transition from little girl to young woman'.

Two of Cole's three husbands, Marvin Yancy and Kenneth Dupree, shared which occupation?

Ministry claimed both: Yancy led a Baptist church in Chicago and Dupree was a bishop, and Cole, raised Episcopalian, became a Baptist around the time of her first marriage.

Cole's second husband, Andre Fischer, was the drummer on 'Tell Me Something Good' with which funk band?

Rufus launched Chaka Khan; Fischer then moved from drum stool to control room and shared a Grammy as a producer of his wife's biggest album.

What was the title of Cole's 2000 autobiography?

Angel on My Shoulder laid bare her years on heroin and crack cocaine; its title nods to the many angels, her late father among them, that she felt had watched over her.

Whom did Cole play in a 2000 NBC television film, a role that won her an NAACP Image Award?

Herself: she shared the part with actress Theresa Randle in a film adapted from her own autobiography, and took the acting award for it.

Cole was arrested for heroin possession in the 1970s in which Canadian city?

Toronto was the scare that came first; she said she then quit heroin cold turkey, only for cocaine to pull her back into addiction a couple of years later.

Cole announced in 2008 that she had which disease, which she linked to past intravenous drug use?

Hepatitis C had sat in her body for 25 years, she said; within four months of starting treatment her kidneys failed and she was on dialysis.

On which TV programme did Cole appeal for a kidney donor in 2009?

Larry King Live brought dozens of emailed offers from viewers before the hour was out, yet the kidney she received that May came from a donor who had died.

Cole died in 2015 on which holiday, the night of a cancelled concert?

New Year's Eve was the night; her family blamed heart failure brought on by pulmonary hypertension, diagnosed after her 2009 kidney transplant.

On the 1994 album Rhythm, Country and Blues, Cole sang 'Since I Fell for You' with which country star?

Reba McEntire and Cole took the pairing on stage at a Los Angeles benefit concert, and the album of soul-meets-country duets entered the country chart at No. 1.

Cole and her parents are buried in which cemetery?

Forest Lawn, Glendale received her after a funeral at which Stevie Wonder, Lionel Richie and Smokey Robinson paid tribute; her father has lain in its Freedom Mausoleum since 1965.

Cole hosted which 1990 TV talent competition with a $100,000 prize?

Big Break gave new singers and musicians a shot at the prize, but the show itself lasted only one syndicated season.

At the 1993 Oscars, Cole sang a medley of two nominated songs from which film?

The Bodyguard's two nominees, 'Run to You' and 'I Have Nothing', were Whitney Houston's songs, but it was Cole who sang them on the night, and both lost to Aladdin's 'A Whole New World'.

Cole sang the anthem before which 1994 event?

The Super Bowl that year was number XXVIII, played in Atlanta, and Cole did not sing alone: the Atlanta University Center Chorus joined her on the Georgia Dome field.

Cole guest-judged which reality contest in 2012 as two contestants performed to 'This Will Be'?

RuPaul's Drag Race set DiDa Ritz and The Princess to lip-sync the song for their place in the contest, and Cole, at the judges' table, was filmed revelling in Ritz's routine.

On her 2013 Spanish-language album, Cole duetted on 'Bachata Rosa' with which Latin star, its writer?

Juan Luis Guerra's duet with her earned a Latin Grammy nomination for Record of the Year; Cole called the album a tribute to Latin music 'because of my father', who had recorded in Spanish himself.

Cole's 1999 album The Magic of Christmas was recorded with which orchestra?

London Symphony Orchestra players backed an album whose title Cole borrowed from the Christmas record her father had made in 1960, when she was ten.

Which label did Cole join for the 2002 jazz album Ask a Woman Who Knows?

Verve released the Grammy-nominated album, then let her swerve away from jazz again on 2006's Leavin', a set of pop and rock covers.

In the early 1990s Cole followed David Crosby and Bonnie Raitt as Person of the Year for which charity?

MusiCares gives the honour for philanthropy as well as music; Cole lent her name to causes from the Children's Diabetes Foundation to the Minority AIDS Project.

Which Boston school awarded Cole an honorary degree in 1995?

Berklee College of Music honoured a singer who had once run from the jazz she grew up with: 'I spent the first part of my career rebelling against it,' she said.

In 2006 Cole guest-starred as a patient with a fork stuck in her neck on which medical series?

Grey's Anatomy gave her a straight acting part of the kind she had long wanted; her 'biggest beef', she once said, was being offered only roles as a singer.

Which singer invited Cole to join his 1983 BBC special A Tribute to Nat Cole?

Johnny Mathis and Cole filmed the concert at the BBC's Television Theatre, and its soundtrack album reached the British top five and went gold.

Cole's biggest UK hit single came from which 1989 album?

Good to Be Back, her only solo album to make the UK top ten, never went gold at home, just as its lead single climbed higher in the UK chart than in the American one.

Natalie Cole's mother, Maria Hawkins, had been a singer with whose orchestra?

Duke Ellington's band billed her as Marie Ellington, yet the shared surname was a coincidence: it came from her first husband, a Tuskegee Airman who died on a training flight.

The Coles were the first Black family to buy a home in which wealthy Los Angeles neighbourhood, where Natalie grew up?

Hancock Park's property owners tried to block the sale and then to buy the house back, and the family dog was poisoned, but the Coles stayed for more than two decades.

Cole sang 'Fever' with which soul great on his final album, released after his death in 2004?

Ray Charles's farewell set of duets became only the second chart-topping album of his career and went on to win eight Grammys.

Which 1993 album of standards won Cole the Grammy for Best Jazz Vocal Performance?

Take a Look won the jazz Grammy she had been nominated for, and missed, two years earlier, on the night her tribute to her father swept the major awards.

In 1976 Cole won the Grand Prix at an international song contest held in which Asian capital?

Tokyo's Music Festival gave her its top prize over the Pointer Sisters in the same year as her first two Grammys; she was the second of six straight American winners, a run that later took in Al Green and Dionne Warwick.