Alma Cogan - Illness and Death

Illness and Death

Singer Anne Shelton attributed her friend Cogan's health decline to "highly experimental" injections she took to lose weight saying "after those injections, was never well again".

In early 1966 Cogan embarked on a series of club dates in the north of England: she collapsed after two performances suffering stomach pains and returned to London where she was diagnosed with stomach cancer. She received treatment and planned to continue her career, even co-writing several songs with Stan Foster for other singers including "I Only Dream of You" recorded by Joe Dolan and Ronnie Carroll's "Wait For Me". Cogan used the pseudonym 'Al Western' for these titles while Foster was credited as 'Stephen Forest'.

Still hoping for a return to the UK charts, Cogan recorded the "Al Western"/"Stephen Forest" composition "Love Ya Illya" under the pseudonym Angela and the Fans. Released by Pye Records in April 1966, this salute to the David McCallum character on the TV show The Man from U.N.C.L.E. received extensive airplay, especially on the offshore pirate radio stations, without mustering enough popularity to rank in the UK Top 50.

While touring Sweden in the summer of 1966 in support of her current Swedish hit single "Hello Baby", Cogan collapsed. She was hospitalized at London's Middlesex Hospital for three weeks before succumbing to ovarian cancer on 26 October 1966 at the age of 34.

Cogan had never been a practising Jew but in deference to her family her death was observed with traditional Hebraic rites concluding with burial at Bushey Jewish Cemetery in Hertfordshire.