Following a brief career as a cabaret singer, Mary Cohan established herself as a Broadway talent in 1930, when she composed a score for her father's non-musical play The Tavern.
Working with writers John Pascal, Francine Pascal, and Michael Stewart, Mary Cohan supervised the musical and lyrical revisions of her father's songs for the hit 1968 Broadway musical, George M!.
[2] In 1940, she shocked her family by eloping with accordion player George Ronkin (aka Ranken), with whom she had three children.
[6] Fosdick died in 1976; Mary is not listed as a survivor in his various obituaries, implying they, too, divorced.
The song "Mary's a Grand Old Name," written by George M. Cohan for the Broadway musical Only 45 Minutes from Broadway and featured in the 1942 film Yankee Doodle Dandy, was reportedly written by Cohan for his daughter, Mary.