Grammy Winner Singer Natalie Cole Dies at 65

However, she knew it would be with limitations.

Celebrities took to social media to honor the late singer. Singer Patti LaBelle tweeted: “She will be truly missed but her light will shine forever!”

Her life was filled with well-documented ups and downs, including chart-topping success but also drug addiction and a diagnosis of Hepatitis C. In 2009, she received a life-saving kidney transplant.

The statement was signed by Cole’s only child, Robert Yancey, and her twin sisters, Timolin and Casey Cole. Their brother, Nat Kelly Cole, died in 1995. Her father died in 1965 when Natalie was just 15.

Her career, which comprised nearly two dozen albums, a pair of memoirs, and a TV movie, was notable for its seamless bridging of soul, jazz, rock, and R&B. But perhaps her biggest splash of all came with her 1991 album, “Unforgettable…With Love”, a recording in which she reprised some of her father’s greatest hits. “Lovely song bird (and great actress too) – she is now singing in heaven”. “With Love”, sold some 14 million copies and won six Grammys.

“I didn’t shed really any real tears until the album was over”, Cole said. Then I cried a whole lot. At age 11, Cole began performing professionally.

She had her first break singing in clubs as the daughter of Nat “King” Cole, but struggled to find her niche as she chose a sound far more modern than her father’s standards.

Cole won nine Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year and Record of the Year in 1992 for “Unforgettable …”

Cole also graced the small screen throughout her career, appearing in “Law & Order”, “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Touched By an Angel”. One of her last performances was here in Richmond, during last summer’s JazzFest.

“I thank my dad for leaving me such a wonderful, wonderful heritage”, Cole said in accepting her awards.

For Cole, the duet was a way to recconect with her father after years of trying to get away from him as an artist.

Cole was born in Los Angeles in February 6, 1950, to Nat King Cole and Maria Hawkins Ellington. In it, she sang some of the classics sung by her father. She eventually entered rehab in 1983.

A prolific artist, Cole released many albums throughout her career.

Cole was diagnosed with hepatitis in 2008 from sharing needles with drug addicts, and underwent kidney transplant surgery in 2009. Sinatra and Bennett, along with Cole’s father, are among the very few who share that distinction.

She was married three times and divorced her most recent husband, Kenneth Dupree in 2004. “I was a heroin addict, sharing needles with the crowd I was with”, she herself admitted to People magazine in 2008.