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Back to Dearly Departed Country Stars
Spade Cooley
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Western swing band leader Donnell "Spade" Cooley, was a successful recording artist and film star in the late 1940s and early '50s. In 1961, his career came to an abrupt end when he was convicted in the beating death of his second wife, Ella Mae. Although slated to be paroled in early 1970, during a weekend furlough in November 1969, Cooley suffered a fatal heart attack backstage at an Oakland, Calif., concert. He was 58.
