Natalie Cole

The daughter of pop icon Nat "King" Cole, Natalie Cole enjoyed not one but two successful stages of her own career as a singer, first in the mid-1970s as a R&B performer, and later in the early 1990s as a pop-jazz vocalist in the style of her father. Cole began performing as a child on her father's records, but waited until her post-college years to try her hand at a solo career. The results were immediately successful, with her debut single "This Will Be" earning a Grammy award. A string of hit records followed until her career was derailed in the early 1980s by a serious heroin and crack cocaine problem. She rebounded by the end of the decade before reaching the height of her popularity with Unforgettable With Love (1991), which famously featured an electronically constructed duet of the standard "Unforgettable" with her father. It swept the Grammys that year and re-minted Cole as a world-class pop interpreter. She moved between jazz and standards and R&B material for the better part of the next decade, slowing only to contend with health problems incurred as a result of her past addictions. She emerged from these issues with renewed vigor, retaining her status as a living connection to her father's storied career while appearing in films and on television in dramatic roles that helped firmly establish Cole as a successful artist in her own right. Sadly, her health issues returned later, causing her death at the age of 65 due to complications from hepatitis C on December 31, 2015.