Shirley Boone, wife of singer Pat Boone, dead at 84: report
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Shirley Boone, who was married to celebrated singer and actor Pat Boone, reportedly died Friday at age 84. (Getty Images)
Shirley Boone, who was married to celebrated singer and actor Pat Boone, died Friday at age 84.
The 1950s star confirmed his wife’s death to People, saying they’d shared “a wonderful, blessed life together for 65 years” and he knew he’d one day be reunited with his beloved.
Shirley and Pat Boone were married for 65 years. (Photo courtesy of Milt Suchin, personal manager for Pat Boone)
“I’ve parted with my better half for a little while … but we don’t die, we just move on to another place, and today was moving day,” he told the outlet.
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“She’s changed her address is all and moved to a different mansion that I expect to join her in one day,” he said. “I’m very confident of that.”
Shirley Boone died at home in Beverly Hills, Calif., with daughters Cherry, Lindy, Debby and Laury singing to her as she passed, Milt Suchin, Pat Boone's personal manager, told Fox News.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Shirley Boone was the daughter of country music singer Clyde Julian "Red" Foley, and was active in a variety of ways throughout her life, Suchin said.
Pat and Shirley Boone married in 1953 and had four children. (Photo courtesy of Milt Suchin, personal manager for Pat Boone)
"Shirley was more accomplished than is generally known," he told Fox News in an email. "Best selling author, recording artist, TV hostess, humanitarian and the origin of Mercy Corps, a top ten hunger relief organization worldwide, a half-billion-dollar annual budget, which started in the Boone home. Millions know her for her Christian ministry."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The romance between the Boones began when they were teenagers. They married in 1953 and went on to have four children together, People reported. As time went on, their extended brood reportedly grew to include several grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
The Boones are seen in their early years together. (Photo courtesy of Milt Suchin, personal manager for Pat Boone.)
“The thing that would most fulfill her was to be a good wife, and mother, and grandmother and to create happy homes,” Boone told People.
In her own career, Shirley was an author and humanitarian, among other things.
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Her husband also credited “her desire to help people as an activist,” telling People that “she had an honest, deep, earnest love for people.”
“She was so easy to love," he said, "because she loved so easily and so naturally."