Illness and Death
James was hospitalized in January 2010 to treat an infection caused by MRSA, a bacterium that is resistant to most antibiotic treatment. During her hospitalization, her son Donto revealed that James had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 2008, and attributed her previous comments about Beyoncé Knowles to "drug induced dementia".
She was diagnosed with leukemia in early 2011. The illness became terminal and she died on January 20, 2012, just five days before her 74th birthday, at Riverside Community Hospital in Riverside, California. Her death came three days after that of Johnny Otis, the man who discovered her in the 1950s. Additionally, just 36 days after her death, her sideman Red Holloway also died.
The funeral, presided by Reverend Al Sharpton, took place in Gardena, California eight days after her death. Singers Stevie Wonder and Christina Aguilera each gave a musical tribute. She was interred at Inglewood Park Cemetery in Los Angeles County, California.
Read more about this topic: Etta James
Famous quotes containing the words illness and/or death:
“Thou wouldst be great;
Art not without ambition, but without
The illness should attend it. What thou wouldst highly
That wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false,
And yet wouldst wrongly win.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Death is too much for men to bear, whereas women, who are practiced in bearing the deaths of men before their own and who are also practiced in bearing life, take death almost in stride. They go to meet death—that is, they attempt suicide—twice as often as men, though men are more “successful” because they use surer weapons, like guns.”
—Roger Rosenblatt (b. 1940)