Toots Shor - Personal Life

Personal Life

Shor and his wife Marion ("Baby") lived for many years in a 12-room double apartment at 480 Park Avenue where they raised their four children named Bari Ellen, Kerry, Rory and Tracey. Tracey, who was Toots' youngest daughter and a late arrival, was taken in and raised by his friends, comedian Bob Hope and his wife Dolores, who was her Godmother at birth and eventually her legal guardian.

During his final years, they lived at the Drake Hotel. He died at age 73, ending a six-week stay in New York University Hospital.

Shor's financial affairs were usually shaky at best thanks to a cavalier attitude toward the IRS, coupled with a generous nature; debts were frequently forgiven for friends who had fallen on hard times, and drinks and meals were comped on a regular basis. Although indigent at the time of death, Shor expressed no regrets, stating that he started out broke and figured it was OK to go out that way as well.

In 1950, Shor was the subject of a three-part biography published in The New Yorker entitled "Toots's World" and written by John Bainbridge, who later combined them into a book. Twenty years later another biography, Toots, was written by Hearst columnist Bob Considine. In 2006, the biographical documentary Toots, in which his granddaughter Kristi Jacobson profiled his life, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. It took "Best Film" at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum's first annual film festival on November 12, 2006. Toots was released to theaters in the fall of 2007.

Bob Broderick, long time friend and Manager of Toots Shor's, was quoted in The Record, NY. 4/20/1968 saying,"Having Toots Shor for a friend and Margaret for a wife is about all a man can ask for out of this life."