Jayne Walton Rosen has died she was 92. Rosen didn't know the middle-aged man who asked to see her at Morningside Ministries at the Meadows last year. The man introduced himself, reached into his backpack and pulled out an 8-by-10 photograph of a young woman. “I paid $40 for your picture on eBay,” he told the puzzled nursing home resident, asking for her autograph. Then he showed other residents the picture.
It was from the era of baton-waving bandleaders and dancers whirling across ballroom floors. And the woman, so young in the photo and now 92, is forever linked to that era.
At birth, her name was Flanagan. On the stage, it was Walton. In the '50s, it became Rosen.
But in the end, Jayne Walton Rosen may be best remembered as “the Champagne Lady” who sang with the Lawrence Welk Orchestra during World War II, performing ballads in ballrooms throughout the Midwest and in New York.
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Rosen, who set out to become a professional singer as soon as she graduated from Brackenridge High School, died Sunday. She was 92.
As a child, she lived in Torreón, in Mexico's Coahuila state, where her father worked for a silver mining company.
Daniel Rosen, a law professor in Tokyo, said his mother was highly influenced by living in post-revolution Mexico. In addition to learning and singing in Spanish, she became aware of Mexico's wealth, poverty and “profound social divisions.”
“It created (in her) a sense of empathy for people,” he said.
But her life was most influenced by music. Her sister was a dancer. Their mother played piano, and an aunt was an organist at downtown San Antonio's Texas Theater.
Rosen won talent shows at the Majestic Theatre and around town, Daniel Rosen said.
Jayne Walton, as she was known, often sang on local radio stations, then on stations in Dallas, Oklahoma City and Chicago, as well as with bands elsewhere, her son said.
Welk heard her voice on the radio and asked her to join his band. She became a friend of the Welk family.
Rosen wasn't the first to be dubbed his “Champagne Lady,” but she sang with that billing for six years. Welk regarded her ability to sing in Spanish as “exotic,” Daniel Rosen said.
“The biggest record she had was ‘Maria Elena.' She recorded it with him and had a gold record.”
Rosen left the orchestra to become a solo performer, and, her son said, “she had considerable success in New York and Chicago” in the mid- to late '40s.
She married in 1952 and put her career on hold.
“She was an inspirational woman to have as a mother,” he said.
Rosen made guest appearances on Welk's long-running television show from time to time.
Later, Rosen worked as a saleswoman at the old Rhodes department store at Wonderland and Dillard's at Central Park Mall.
Retired for 20 years, Rosen enjoyed good health until recent years. She was on dialysis, had heart disease, then fell and broke her hip.
“She recovered to a remarkable extent,” her son said of her hip injury.
“She had a margarita every night over the holidays,” he said.
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