‘Unforgettable’ singer Natalie Cole dies at 65

Singer Natalie Cole, the daughter of jazz great Nat “King” Cole, died Thursday night, her family confirmed.

Cole’s family said in a statement that the singer died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles from complications from long-standing health issues, adding that she “fought a fierce, courageous battle, dying how she lived … with dignity, strength and honor.”

The multiple Grammy-winning artist was 65.

Cole broke through as a recording artist with 1975’s “Inseparable,” her debut album which spawned the No. 1 hit “This Will Be (An Everlasting Love).” The same year, she received her first of nine Grammy Awards for Best New Artist.

“I can’t stand up here too long, I might start testifying,” she said in her acceptance speech.

Video by YouTube user KahPow84

She also picked up a Grammy for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance, a category that previously only went to Aretha Franklin for eight years.

Most recently, the signature tune can be heard playing in radio and TV ads for eHarmony, an online dating site.

Cole’s hits continued shortly after the instant success of “This Will Be” with 1976’s “I’ve Got Love On My Mind” and “Our Love” in 1978. Cole also returned to chart-topping status with her 1988 cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “Pink Cadillac.”

Video by YouTube user CLASSIC HITS

In 1991, her comeback album “Unforgettable: With Love,” which included a posthumous duet with her father, won six Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year, and spent five weeks at No. 1.

Video by YouTube user 90’s Best of R&B Slowjams

Cole’s career spanned decades, but was also marked with bouts of drug addiction that slowed her recording progress in the 1980s. She documented these struggles in her 2000 autobiography, “Angel On My Shoulder.”

In 2008, she announced that she was diagnosed with hepatitis C, a liver infection that was linked to her past heroin use.

In her second memoir, “Love Brought Me Back,” Cole said she had been sober for more than 25 years before that diagnosis. Later that year, she underwent a kidney transplant, thanks to a donor family from El Salvador.

Born into a family of musicians, an 11-year-old Cole shared the stage with her father to sing a duet for a 1961 show at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles.

A review in the Los Angeles Times called the performance a “delight.”