The McGuire Sisters star Phyllis McGuire dead at 89: Singer who had infamous affair with mob boss Sam Giancana passes away in Las Vegas
Phyllis McGuire of the 1950s singing trio the McGuire Sisters died this Tuesday aged 89 at her sprawling mansion in Las Vegas.
She was the youngest and last surviving member of the group, dying exactly two years and one day after her sister Christine.
The Palm Eastern Mortuary confirmed her death to the New York Times on New Year's Eve without stating a specific cause.
Dearly departed: Phyllis McGuire of the 1950s singing trio the McGuire Sisters died this Tuesday aged 89 at her home in Las Vegas; pictured in 2007
Throwback to 1955: She was the youngest and last surviving member of the group; she is pictured between her sisters Christine (left) and Dorothy (right)
She and her sisters were a showbiz sensation - but their squeaky clean all-American image was tarnished by Phyllis' affair with notorious mafioso Sam Giancana.
Phyllis was born on Valentine's Day 1931 and was only four years old when she began singing with her sisters Dorothy and Christine while they grew up in small-town Ohio.
They performed at the church where their mother Lillie served as a minister and then broke out into such venues as military bases during World War II.
However the year they became stars was 1952 - they got a record deal with Coral and got a rapturous audience response to their shot on Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts.
The McGuire Sisters' squeaky clean all-American image was tarnished by Phyllis' affair with notorious mafioso Sam Giancana; they are pictured in London in 1961
That year Phyllis tied the knot with a radio personality called Neal Van Ells, but the marriage had fallen apart by 1956.
The McGuire Sisters' biggest hit recordings were Sugartime, Sincerely and Picnic, all released during the middle part of the 1950s.
With their coordinated costumes and choreography, they became regular favorites on the variety TV circuit including The Ed Sullivan Show.
Her troubles began one night in 1959 when she was at the Desert Inn in Las Vegas for a singing engagement with her sisters.
Seen around New York: Their biggest hit recordings were Sugartime, Sincerely and Picnic, all from the middle of the 1950s; they are pictured at Manhattan's El Morocco Nightclub in 1956
Sam Giancana saw her onstage and fell for her, instructing the pit boss to 'eat the marker' on the thousands of dollars of debt she owed at the blackjack tables.
Their sizzling romance became the stuff of infamy, throwing up roadblocks in the McGuire Sisters' career during the 1960s.
'When I met him I did not know who he was, and he was not married and I was an unmarried woman, and according to the way I was brought up there was nothing wrong with that. And I didn't find out until sometime later really who he was, and I was already in love,' Phyllis insisted to Barbara Walters decades later.
She tried to leave him 'a couple of times' as 'it was really hurting the career and it was really breaking my parents' heart, and I also had an ultimatum from my sister's husband that if this didn't end that the trio would be over. So that was very painful for me to think of, and so I tried twice but it didn't work.'
Later life: After the trio broke up in 1968 Dorothy and Christine became homemakers and Phyllis embarked on a solo career; they are pictured performing on TV in 1966
At one point she and Sam disembarked a plane in Chicago, the site of his mob operation, and were ambushed by the FBI.
To avoid facing a subpoena Phyllis consented to be interviewed right then, and while she was taken off separately Sam was stuck holding her handbag, much to the amusement of the agents who were standing by.
'I know all about the Kennedys and Phyllis knows a lot more about the Kennedys and one of these days we are going to tell all,' he thundered according to the FBI report.
During the Kennedy administration Sam was part of a CIA plot to assassinate Fidel Castro. Sam and the American president also had a mutual mistress, Judith Exner.
Split: 'Oh, we lost our confidence at different times - me less than Dorothy and Christine,' Phyllis told Dominick Dunne; she is pictured on the Joey Bishop Show in 1968
In 1963 Phyllis had a small part in the movie Come Blow Your Horn which was led by the erstwhile Kennedy pal Frank Sinatra.
'He is the most talented but most contradictory person. He has surrounded himself with an entourage who yes him to death. How can you expand yourself surrounded by yes-men?' she told Dominick Dunne of Vanity Fair in the late 1980s.
'I've stayed in his house, and he has bored me to death. He tells the sa-a-ame stories he's been telling for years, and all I ever heard were his records, which he played over and over again,' she recalled.
By the late 1960s the McGuire Sisters were kaput, giving a farewell performance on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1968 and then breaking up.
Seems like old times: She reunited onstage with Dorothy and Christine in 1986 for a series of sporadic public appearances; pictured in 1989
Dorothy and Christine receded from public life entirely to become homemakers but Phyllis carried on a solo career as a live singing act.
'Oh, we lost our confidence at different times - me less than Dorothy and Christine. Dorothy got married. Christine got married. They had guilt trips thinking they should be home with their children,' she dished to Dominick.
A year before the group broke up she had bought her 55,000 square foot Las Vegas estate with money she attributed to her oil and gas investments.
Her embellishments included swan-shaped gold bathroom fixtures, a 19th century chandelier, a swan moat and a replica of the Eiffel Tower that went 45 feet high.
Only the best: In 1963 Phyllis also had a small part in the movie Come Blow Your Horn which was led by the erstwhile Kennedy pal Frank Sinatra
Phyllis spent a long time involved with 'Tiger Mike' Davis, who had risen from a chauffeur to an oil and gas tycoon and was known as the 'world's grumpiest boss.'
She was still running around with Sam Giancana when she first attracted the attention of Tiger Mike in the 1960s.
The situation was so alarming to her that she once told Mike: 'You better stay away from me. Do you want to end up on the bottom of Lake Mead?'
Phyllis, who was friends with Mike's first wife Helen Bonfils, had a lengthy romance with him but they never married and she never had children.
All gone: Dorothy eventually died in 2012 at the age of 84 and Christine, who was the eldest of the trio, followed six years later at the age of 92; the three sisters are pictured in 1997
She reunited onstage with Dorothy and Christine in 1986 for a series of sporadic public appearances into the early 21st century.
In 1995 Phyllis was played by Mary Louise Parker in an HBO movie about the Giancana affair called Sugartime, after the hit McGuire Sisters record.
Dorothy eventually died in 2012 at the age of 84 and Christine, who was the eldest of the trio, followed six years later at the age of 92.
Phyllis told Vanity Fair in the 1980s: 'I don't fear living, and I don't fear dying. You only live once, and I'm going to live it to the fullest, until away I go.'
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