WS Chronicle

Photo by Victoria Will/Invision/AP, File

In a Wednesday, June 26, 2013 file photo, Grammy winning singer-songwriter Natalie Cole poses for a portrait in promotion of her new album “Natalie Cole en Espanol,” in New York. Cole, the daughter of jazz legend Nat “King” Cole who carried on his musical legacy, died Thursday night, Dec. 31, 2015, according to publicist Maureen O’Connor. She was 65.

By SANDY COHEN and MESFIN FEKADU

Associated Press

LOS ANGELES  — Natalie Cole, the daughter of jazz legend Nat King Cole, has died. She carved out her own success with R&B hits like “Our Love” and “This Will Be” before triumphantly intertwining their legacies to make his “Unforgettable” their signature hit through technological wizardry. She was 65.

While Cole was a Grammy winner in her own right, she had her greatest success in 1991 when she re-recorded her father’s classic hits – with him on the track – for the album “Unforgettable … With Love.” It became a multiplatinum smash and garnered her multiple Grammy Awards, including album of the year.

Cole died Thursday evening, Dec. 31, at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles due to complications from ongoing health issues, her family said in a statement.

“Natalie fought a fierce, courageous battle, dying how she lived … with dignity, strength and honor. Our beloved Mother and sister will be greatly missed and remain UNFORGETTABLE in our hearts forever,” read the statement from her son Robert Yancy and sisters Timolin and Casey Cole.

“I had to hold back the tears. I know how hard she fought,” said Aretha Franklin in a statement. “She fought for so long. She was one of the greatest singers of our time.”

Other celebrities honored Cole on social media. In a tweet, actress Marlee Matlin called Cole a lovely songbird and a great actress, writing “she is now singing in heaven.” Patti LaBelle tweeted, “She will be truly missed but her light will shine forever!”

Natalie Cole, born in 1950, had battled drug problems and hepatitis that forced her to undergo a kidney transplant in May 2009. Cole’s older sister, Carol “Cookie” Cole, died the day she received the transplant. Their brother, Nat Kelly Cole, died in 1995.

Natalie Cole was inspired by her dad at an early age and auditioned to sing with him when she was just 11 years old. She was 15 when he died of lung cancer, in 1965.

She began as an R&B singer but later gravitated toward the smooth pop and jazz standards that her father loved.

Cole made her recording debut in 1975 with “Inseparable.” The music industry welcomed her with two Grammy awards in 1976 – one for best new artist and one for best female R&B vocal performance for her buoyant hit “This Will Be (An Everlasting Love).”

She also worked as an actress, with appearances on TV’s “Touched by an Angel” and “Grey’s Anatomy.”

Cole was born to Nat “King” Cole and his wife, Maria Ellington Cole, a onetime vocalist with Duke Ellington who was no relation to the great bandleader.

The family eventually included five children.

Natalie Cole started singing seriously in college, performing in small clubs.

But in her 2000 autobiography, “Angel on My Shoulder,” Cole discussed how she had battled heroin, crack cocaine and alcohol addiction for many years. She spent six months in rehab in 1983.

When she announced in 2008 that she had been diagnosed with hepatitis C, a liver disease spread through contact with infected blood, she blamed her past intravenous drug use.

Cole received chemotherapy to treat the hepatitis and “within four months, I had kidney failure,” she told CNN’s Larry King in 2009. She needed dialysis three times a week until she received a donor kidney on May 18, 2009. The organ procurement agency One Legacy facilitated the donation from a family that had requested that their donor’s organ go to Cole if it was a match.

Cole toured through much of her illness, often receiving dialysis at hospitals around the globe.

“I think that I am a walking testimony that you can have scars,” she told People magazine. “You can go through turbulent times and still have victory in your life.’’