Personal Life and Death
Miller was married three times, and fathered seven children. Miller's first wife Barbara bore his first child, Michael, who later died. The couple had three more children subsequent to Michael's death — Alan, Rhonda and Shari. By the time Shari was born, Miller's career was beginning to blossom into national popularity. The family remained in Inglewood for a short time after Miller found fame. The increasing interest in Miller caused struggles for the performer: He suffered from depression and insomnia and had a drug addiction which contributed to the end of both his first and second marriages. Miller was known to walk off shows and get into fights. After a divorce with his first wife, he married Leah Kendrick. She gave birth to two children, Shannon and Dean Miller, who like his father, went on to become a singer-songwriter. The Christmas song "Old Toy Trains" was written by Miller about his son, who was only two years old when it was released in 1967. After divorcing Leah, Miller married Mary Arnold, whom he had met through Kenny Rogers. Arnold was a member of The First Edition, a band that included Rogers. They adopted two children: Taylor and Adam. After The First Edition, she subsequently performed with Miller on tours, including a White House performance for President Gerald Ford. In 2009 she was inducted into the Iowa Rock'n Roll Hall of Fame, Arnold currently manages Roger Miller's estate. She sued Sony for copyright infringement in the 2007 case Roger Miller Music, Inc. v. Sony/ATV Publishing, LLC, which went to the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Arnold was ultimately awarded nearly $1 million in royalties and rights to the songs Miller wrote in 1964.
Miller was a lifelong cigarette smoker. During a television interview Miller once explained that he composed his songs from "bits and pieces" of ideas he wrote on scraps of paper. When asked what he did with the unused bits and pieces, he half-joked, "I smoke 'em!" Miller died of lung and throat cancer in 1992, at the age of 56 shortly after the discovery of a growth under his vocal cords.
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