Rich Little returns to scene of wife's funeral to say "so long" to Tony Curtis

Weeks after the funeral of his wife, Marie, who committed suicide in July, legendary impersonator Rich Little returned to the Palm Mortuary in Las Vegas for the farewell to show biz pal Tony Curtis.

The Palm Valley View Cemetery is also the final resting place for Little's fellow impressionist and George Burns impersonator Danny Gans.

Marie Little, humanitarian

The late Marie Marotta Little, wife of legendary impersonator Rich Little, was a star in her own right, honored on Las Vegas Boulevard on the Las Vegas Walk of Stars.


Funeral services took place this morning.

Private services for Rich Little's wife

Funeral services will be private tomorrow for Marie Marotta, the third wife of legendary impersonator Rich Little, who apparently took her own life last week, days after a two-pronged attack on Little's politics and work by Las Vegas blogger, New York Times stringer, Gay Vegas author, concert promoter and comp queen Steve Friess.

Marotta, recently wracked with crippling migraines, married Little in Hawaii in October 2003. Her humanitarian work earned her a place on the Las Vegas Walk of Stars®, in front of the Flamingo Hilton.

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Marie on Rich Little's USO tour in Germany,
buying holiday gifts for orphans

Click here to donate to Child Haven in Marie's memory

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Steve Friess attacked Rich Little twice the weekend before Little's wife committed suicide

In a stunningly unfortunate case of bad timing, it turns out that Las Vegas blogger, New York Times stringer, Gay Vegas author, concert promoter and comp queen Steve Friess published a pair of vicious, politically-motivated attacks on the legendary comic impersonator Rich Little, just days before Little's wife committed suicide. "The Friesster," who has exerted an influence on Vegas entertainment scene through his many media connections and outlets (not to mention his relationships with Vegas moguls like Steve Wynn), slammed the 71-year-old Little on his Vegas blogsite on Saturday, July 10th, for allegedly referring to gay Congressman Barney Frank as a "queen" in a punchline during a comedy routine the previous evening at the Nevada Republican Party's annual convention.

"It seems like Little wants to make himself relevant again by stealing material, resorting to incredibly simplistic homophobic humor and polarizing audiences." --Steve Friess

The next day, Friess hit again, publishing an accusation from a "reader" who supposedly "attended Rich Little's stand-up performance at The Cannery in North Las Vegas on Saturday night," that Little had "introduced a woman in the audience who he said was the best female impersonator besides for Barney Frank." Friess also repeated the accusation from the "reader" that "Little's best impression was of Andy Rooney but that the jokes themselves were lifted verbatim from Steven Wright." Despite his reputation for cadging free show tickets, Friess did not attend either performance. In the Sunday attack, the activist Friesster revealed that his problems with Little may have less to do with the use of a "slur" than with Little's conservative political leanings and contributions to Sean Hannity events. "Rich Little is an interesting figure because he was called upon in 2007 to perform at the White House Correspondents Dinner the year after Steven Colbert's scorcher embarrassed President Bush. The reviews were brutal but he didn't do much current-event political humor then. "I'm not one to write off someone just because they're old or they've been out of the public eye for a while... But it seems like Little wants to make himself relevant again by stealing material, resorting to incredibly simplistic homophobic humor and polarizing audiences who aren't expecting to be polarized." Four days after the broadsides, Little's wife Marie Marotta was found dead in an apparent suicide. Norm Clarke of the Las Vegas Review-Journal on Sunday quoted "a friend" saying that Marie's health issues were compounded by "a tough year" for the couple, including "a dropoff in his headliner bookings in the last decade." While there is no evidence that Friess' screed contributed to the tragedy on Thursday, the postings, which are widely read among Las Vegas' business class, would certainly add to Rich Little's difficulties obtaining future headlining bookings in the city. As of this posting, Friess has not commented on Rich Little's tragedy. (Leaving aside a comedian's license to offend-- what of the word "Queen"? In a rare case in which a negative comment on Friess's site has not been censored and removed, a commenter to Friess's posts challenged the activist for holding the "old" Little to the political-correctness expected of young performers. He also questioned Friess' hypocrisy: "In 'Gay Vegas', you say 'there is nothing queer about the Four Queens, except its name'. This makes me see 'Queen' as not being insulting, yet your post about the Barney Frank joke makes me think it may be an insult. So, now I am wondering when it is OK to use 'Queen' and when it is an insult? I am especially afraid that it is never OK to use 'Queen' if the user is not gay." (Friess responded: "The use of terms/slurs by people who are part of the community or friendly to it is different.")

Rich Little's tragic wife: "Never give up"

"Never give up."

That was the advice from legendary celebrity impersonator Rich Little and his wife Marie Marrota Little in November 2008. The couple were among the Vegas A-list who turned out for the Las Vegas Women's Chamber of Commerce's Athena Awards, honoring women business owners. Tragically, Marotta was found dead in the couple's Las Vegas home on Thursday, allegedly a suicide at 45.

Rich Little's wife an apparent suicide

Rich Little says he found a suicide note along with the body of his wife in the bedroom of their dreamhouse in the Lake Sahara section of Las Vegas on Thursday. Marie Marotta apparently ended her life with an overdose of sleeping pills.

The report comes out of the 71-year-old impersonator's hometown, Ottawa, Canada, where his longtime friend, retired broadcaster Gord Atkinson, says that Marotta suffered from severe migraine headaches that sometimes "knocked her out for days.

"She left him a loving note and said that she couldn't go on."

Marotta was 45. She became Little's third wife when she married him in Hawaii in 2003. She was active in many humanitarian efforts, including working with the homeless, children in need and abused animals, and this year was inducted into the Las Vegas Walk of Stars.


Las Vegas gossip Norm Clarke quotes a "friend":

"'They've had a tough year,' alluding to Marotta's medical issues, their purchase of a dream home at the height of the local real estate run-up and a dropoff in his headliner bookings in the last decade."

Atkinson say Rich Little is "absolutely devastated."

Services are set for 11 a.m. Wednesday at Palm Mortuary on Eastern Avenue.

Rich Little made tabloid television history in 1992 when he was sued by his former girlfriend, Vegas magician Melinda Saxe, for allegedly making a secret videotape of them having sex.