performances and record albums, Hildegarde appeared in a number of television specials and toured with the national company of the Stephen Sondheim musical Follies. She appeared as the celebrity mystery guest on What's My Line? on May 8, 1955. After a question from Bennett Cerf about her handing out roses, to which she replied "I don't hand them out, I throw them out!", Dorothy Kilgallen correctly guessed it was her. Hildegarde sang a presidential nomination campaign song for Margaret Chase Smith's unsuccessful 1964 campaign for president; the song was called "Leave It to the Girls", and was written by Gladys Shelley. Personal life and death Hildegarde never married, although she was quoted as saying, "I traveled all my life, met a lot of men, had a lot of romances, but it never worked out. It was always 'hello and goodbye'". She was the business partner and good friend of Anna Sosenko, an aspiring songwriter whom she met at a boarding house in Camden, New Jersey at the beginning of her career. That relationship ended in litigation over the control of receipts from their joint efforts. Her autobiography, Over 50... So What!, was published by Doubleday in 1961. She died at the age of 99 in a Manhattan hospital on July 29, 2005, of natural causes. References External links Biography on MusicBizAdvice.com Biography at BigBands and BigNames.com Hear an episode of her radio show, "Hildegarde's Raleigh Room" Archives Hildegarde Sell Papers in the Marquette University Archives Hildegarde papers, 1936-1978, held by the Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts 1906 births 2005 deaths 20th-century American singers 20th-century American women singers American women pop singers American people of German descent American LGBT musicians Singers from New York City Singers from Wisconsin Nightlife in New York City Vaudeville performers People from New Holstein, Wisconsin People from Sheboygan County, Wisconsin 20th-century LGBT people 21st-century American women