Peggy Lee (May 26, 1920 - January 21, 2002) was an American popular music and jazz singer. She was famous for her "soft and cool" singing style, which she is thought to have developed in response to noisy nightclub audiences. Lee was born Norma Delores Egstrom in Jamestown, North Dakota. After her mother died her father remarried and her stepmother was very cruel to her. So she left home, and in 1941, she joined Benny Goodman's band—then at the height of its popularity—and for over two years toured the United States with it. In early 1942, Lee had her first # 1 hit, "Somebody Else Is Taking My Place," followed by 1943's "Why Don't You Do Right?," which sold over a million copies and made her famous. She sang with Goodman in two 1943 films, "Stage Door Canteen" and "The Powers Girl." In March 1943, Lee married Dave Barbour, the guitarist in Goodman's band.
In 1944, Lee began to record for Capitol Records, for whom she produced a long string of hits, many of them with lyrics and music by Lee and Barbour, including "I Don't Know Enough About You," "It's a Good Day," and the #1-selling record of 1948, "Mañana." She is most famous for her cover version of the Little Willie John hit "Fever" and her rendition of Leiber and Stoller's "Is That All There Is?" Her relationship with the Capitol label spanned almost three decades, apart from a brief but artistically rich detour (1952-1956) at Decca Records, where she recorded one of her most acclaimed albums, "Black Coffee," and had hit singles with "Lover" and "Mr. Wonderful." She was also known as a songwriter with such hits as the songs from the Disney movie Lady and the Tramp, which she also sang. Her many songwriting collaborators, in addition to Dave Barbour, included Laurindo Almeida, Harold Arlen, Sonny Burke, Cy Coleman, Gene DiNovi, Duke Ellington, Dave Grusin, Dick Hazard, Quincy Jones, Francis Lai, Jack Marshall, Johnny Mandel, Marian McPartland, Willard Robison, Lalo Schifrin, Hubie Wheeler, and Victor Young.
Lee also acted in several films. In 1953, she played opposite Danny Thomas in a remake of the early Al Jolson film, The Jazz Singer. In 1955, she played a despondent and alcoholic blues singer in Pete Kelly's Blues (1955), for which she was nominated for an Oscar.
Lee was nominated for twelve Grammy Awards, winning Best Contemporary Vocal Performance for her 1969 hit "Is That All There Is". In 1995 she was given the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
In the early 1990s, she retained famed entertainment attorney Neil Papiano, who, on her behalf successfully sued Disney for royalties on Lady and the Tramp. Lee's lawsuit claimed that she was due royalties for video tapes, a technology that did not exist when she agreed to write and perform for Disney.
She continued to perform into the 1990s and still mesmerized audiences and critics alike. As was the case with fellow musical legends Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald, Lee turned to acting skills and showmanship as her voice diminished.
After years of poor health, Lee died from complications from diabetes and cardiac disease at the age of 81 in 2002. She is survived by Nicki Lee Foster, her daughter with Dave Barbour. She is interred in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Westwood, California.
Peggy Lee is a recipient of the state of North Dakota's Roughrider Award; the Pied Piper Award from The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP); the Presidents Award, from the Songwriters' Guild of America; the Ella Award for Lifetime Achievement, from the Society of Singers; and the Living Legacy Award, from the Women's International Center. In 1999 she was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
In April of 2005 McFarland Publishing released Miss Peggy Lee: A Career Chronicle by Robert Strom (ISBN 0786419369).
Lady and the Tramp (1955)
