Mary Weiss

Mary Louise Weiss (December 28, 1948 – January 19, 2024) was an American singer and interior designer, best known as the lead singer of the Shangri-Las in the 1960s. Their single "Leader of the Pack" went to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1964. She had little involvement in the music scene for decades, returning in 2007 to record her first and only solo album with Norton Records. She had an older sister, Betty, and an older brother, George. Mary sang in school plays and choirs and she listened to her brother, an Elvis fan, and his friends performing popular songs of the day. She attended her first Everly Brothers concert in 1963 at Freedomland U.S.A. at age 14. and Weiss went to San Francisco to try a different lifestyle. She gave up singing, married Ed Ryan, and went to work for an architectural firm. She later became a commercial interior designer in New York.

Solo album In 2005, Weiss left her job in commercial interiors to return to music. She was persuaded to record a solo album, Dangerous Game, in 2007, despite having not sung in almost 20 years. She recalled that she did not even sing along to the car radio.

Personal life and death After the Shangri-Las, Weiss took a job as a purchasing agent in New York City in Manhattan. She recalled in a 2007 interview, "I went to work for an architectural firm, and I was seriously into it. Then I got into commercial interiors, huge projects, buildings." She later became the chief purchasing agent and ran the commercial furniture dealership. In the late 1980s, she managed a furniture store and was an interior designer. By 2001, she was a furniture consultant to New York businesses.

Weiss died from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease at her home in Palm Springs, California, on January 19, 2024, at the age of 75 leaving her sister Betty as the only living member of the Shangri-Las. Weiss is survived by her third husband, Ed Ryan.