Fania, Knight agreed for Cruz to produce the album Celia y Johnny with musician/producer Johnny Pacheco, which began a lifelong friendship between the collaborators, and continued success for Cruz, including tours of six continents for the band in the 1970s and 1980s. By the mid-1990s, Cruz was an international star, and incorporated Knight into her performances, clasping him to her and referring to him as Mi cabecita de algodon (my little cottonhead) because of his halo of snow-white hair, and white mutton-chops. At home in Queens, New York, and later in Fort Lee, New Jersey, however, Cruz said she was a conventional Latina wife, performing errands such as cooking for him. In early 2005, he attended the opening of an exhibition dedicated to Cruz at Washington's Smithsonian Museum. He worked on a biography and CD releases, but complications from years of diabetes began to take their toll on Knight, beginning with a mild stroke and then another more serious seizure in February 2006, the effects of which were exacerbated by family feuding over Cruz's fortune, though the lawsuits would be withdrawn due to Knight's dementia. Death Knight died on February 3, 2007, at age 85 of diabetes and other ailments. He is survived by their daughter, Ernestina Knight, and his other four children Emilia, Gladys, Pedro and Roberto, who remained in Cuba. He is buried with Cruz in the mausoleum he built for them in 2003. References External links 1921 births 2007 deaths Cuban trumpeters Cuban exiles Cuban emigrants to the United States Afro-Cuban culture American entertainers of Cuban descent Musicians from Miami Cuban Roman Catholics Cuban people of African descent 20th-century American musicians Exiles of the Cuban Revolution in the United States 20th-century trumpeters Burials at Woodlawn Cemetery (Bronx, New York) People of Afro–Cuban descent