Peggy Lee

Norma Deloris Egstrom (May 26, 1920 – January 21, 2002), known professionally as Peggy Lee, was an American jazz and popular music singer, songwriter, and actress whose career spanned seven decades. From her beginning as a vocalist on local radio to singing with Benny Goodman's big band, Lee created a sophisticated persona, writing music for films, acting, and recording conceptual record albums combining poetry and music.

Lee recorded more than 1,100 masters and co-wrote more than 270 songs. She is best known for her role in the Walt Disney classic Lady and the Tramp, where she voiced Darling, Peg, and the Siamese cats, among others. In 1956, she received an Academy Award nomination for her role in the 1955 film Pete Kelly's Blues. That same year Lee was also nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award.

Early life Lee was born Norma Deloris Egstrom in Jamestown, North Dakota, United States, on May 26, 1920, the seventh of the eight children of Selma Emele (née Anderson) Egstrom and Marvin Olaf Egstrom, a station agent for the Midland Continental Railroad. Her family were Lutherans. Her father was Swedish-American and her mother was Norwegian-American. After her mother died when Lee was four, her father married Minnie Schaumberg Wiese. His family's original name was Ekström.

Lee and her family lived in several towns along the Midland Continental Railroad (Jamestown, Nortonville, and Wimbledon). She graduated from Wimbledon High School in 1937.

In March 1938, at age 17, Lee left home for Hollywood, California. Her first job was seasonal work on Balboa Island, Newport Beach, as a short-order cook and waitress at Harry's Cafe. When the job ended after Easter, she was hired as a carnival barker at the Balboa Fun Zone. She wrote about this experience in the song "The Nickel Ride", which she composed with Dave Grusin for the 1974 film of the same name.

Later in 1938, Lee returned to Hollywood to audition for the MC at The Jade. Her employment was cut short when she fainted onstage due to overwork and malnutrition. After she was taken to the Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center she was told she needed a tonsillectomy. Lee returned to North Dakota for the operation.

In 1939, Lee was hired to perform regularly at The Powers Hotel in Fargo, and toured with both the Sev Olson and the Will Osborne Orchestras. She was also again broadcasting at WDAY.

When Lee returned to California in 1940, she took a job singing at The Doll House in Palm Springs. There, she developed her trademark sultry purr, having decided to compete with the noisy crowd with subtlety rather than volume. Lee, famous for her sultry singing voice, featured in a cigarette ad in 1953.

I knew I couldn't sing over them, so I decided to sing under them. The more noise they made, the more softly I sang. When they discovered they couldn't hear me, they began to look at me. Then, they began to listen. As I sang, I kept thinking, "softly with feeling". The noise dropped to a hum; the hum gave way to silence. I had learned how to reach and hold my audience—softly, with feeling.

Career Recording career In 1942, Lee had her first top ten hit, "Somebody Else Is Taking My Place", followed in 1943 by "Why Don't You Do Right?", which sold more than one million copies and made her famous. She sang with Goodman's orchestra in two 1943 films, Stage Door Canteen and The Powers Girl.

In March 1943, Lee married Dave Barbour, a guitarist in Goodman's band. Lee said:

Will Friedwald has written:

In 1944, Lee drifted back to songwriting and occasional recording sessions for Capitol Records, for which she recorded a long string of hits, many of them with lyrics and music by Lee and Barbour, including "I Don't Know Enough About You" and "It's a Good Day". Her recording of "Golden Earrings", the title song of a 1947 movie, was a hit throughout 1947–48. "Mañana", by Lee and Barbour, was her eleventh solo hit recording, and remained on the charts for 21 weeks, including nine at the top position. The song sold more than a million copies, and earned the Top Disc Jockey Record of the Year award from Billboard magazine.

In 1948, Lee joined vocalists Perry Como and Jo Stafford as a host of the NBC Radio musical program The Chesterfield Supper Club. She was a regular on The Jimmy Durante Show and appeared frequently on Bing Crosby's radio shows during the late 1940s and early 1950s.

Her relationship with Capitol spanned almost three decades aside from a brief detour (1952–1956) at Decca. For that label, she recorded Black Coffee and had hit singles such as "Lover" and "Mister Wonderful".

In 1958, she recorded her own version of "Fever" by Little Willie John, written by Eddie Cooley and Otis Blackwell. Lee created a new arrangement for the song, and added lyrics ("Romeo loved Juliet", "Captain Smith and Pocahontas"), which she neglected to copyright. Her version of "Fever" was a hit and was nominated in three categories at the 1st Annual Grammy Awards in 1959, including Record of the Year and Song of the Year.

Lee provided speaking and singing voices for several characters in the Disney movie Lady and the Tramp (1955), playing the human Darling, the dog Peg, and the two Siamese cats, Si and Am. She also co-wrote, with Sonny Burke, all of the original songs for the film, including "He's A Tramp", "Bella Notte", "La La Lu", "The Siamese Cat Song", and "Peace on Earth". In 1987, when Lady and the Tramp was released on VHS, Lee sought performance and song royalties on the video sales. When the Disney company refused to pay, she filed a lawsuit in 1988. After a prolonged legal battle, in 1992, Lee was awarded $2.3 million for breach of contract, plus $500,000 for unjust enrichment, $600,000 for illegal use of Lee's voice and $400,000 for the use of her name.

Peggy Lee also wrote the lyrics for "Johnny Guitar" (with music composer Victor Young), the title track of the 1954 film, Johnny Guitar, which she sings partially at the end of the movie.

During her career, Lee appeared in hundreds of variety shows, and several TV movies and specials.

Songwriting Lee wrote or co-wrote more than 270 songs. In addition to her own material to sing, she was hired to score and compose songs for movies. For the Disney movie Lady and the Tramp, she co-composed all of the original songs with Burke, and supplied the singing and speaking voices of four characters.

Over the years, her songwriting collaborators included David Barbour, Laurindo Almeida, Harold Arlen, Sonny Burke, Cy Coleman, Duke Ellington, Dave Grusin, Quincy Jones, Francis Lai, Jack Marshall, Johnny Mandel, Marian McPartland, Willard Robison, Lalo Schifrin, and Victor Young.

Lee's first published song was in 1941, "Little Fool". "What More Can a Woman Do?" was recorded by Sarah Vaughan with Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker. "Mañana (Is Soon Enough for Me)" was number one on the Billboard singles chart for nine weeks in 1948, from the week of March 13 to May 8.

Lee was a mainstay of Capitol Records when rock and roll came onto the American music scene. She was among the first of the "old guard" to recognize this new genre, as seen by her recording music from the Beatles, Randy Newman, Carole King, James Taylor, and other up-and-coming songwriters. From 1957 until her final disc for the company in 1972, Lee produced a steady stream of two or three albums per year that usually included standards (often arranged quite differently from the original), her own compositions, and material from young artists.

Many of her compositions have become standards, performed by singers such as Tony Bennett, Nat King Cole, Natalie Cole, Bing Crosby, Doris Day, Ella Fitzgerald, Judy Garland, Diana Krall, Queen Latifah, Barry Manilow, Bette Midler, Janelle Monae, Nina Simone, Regina Spektor, Sarah Vaughan and others.

Personal life Lee was married four times: to guitarist and composer Dave Barbour (1943–1951), actor Brad Dexter (1953), actor Dewey Martin (1956–1958), and percussionist Jack Del Rio (1964).

Lee learned Transcendental Meditation and said she was taught "by the Maharishi personally and that was a great honor."

Lawsuit In 1987, Peggy Lee was asked to help promote the first VHS release of Lady and the Tramp, for which she was paid an honorarium of $500. Lee contended Disney had breached the 1952 contract she had signed with the studio, which denied Disney the right to make "transcriptions for sale to the public" without her approval. Disney CEO Michael Eisner refused to pay Lee her share of the royalties. On November 16, 1988, Lee sued the Walt Disney Company for breach of contract, claiming that she retained the rights to transcriptions of the music, arguing that videotape editions were transcriptions. Her lawyers demanded $50 million in damages for compensation. In March 1991, Lee was awarded $2.3 million for breach of contract, plus $500,000 for unjust enrichment, $600,000 for illegal use of Lee's voice and $400,000 for the use of her name. From the $72 million Disney had earned in videocassette sales, by 1995, Lee's award was estimated to be four percent of the sales. In December 1992, the California Supreme Court denied a hearing on Disney's appeal of lower-court rulings, which upheld the studio had committed breach of contract.

Illness and death

Lee continued to perform into the 1990s, sometimes using a wheelchair. After years of poor health, she died of complications from diabetes and a heart attack on January 21, 2002, at the age of 81. Lee was cremated and her ashes were buried with a bench-style monument in Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles.

Legacy Lee is often cited as the inspiration for the Margarita cocktail. In 1948, after a trip to Mexico, she and her husband ventured into the Balinese Room in Galveston, Texas. She requested a drink similar to one she had had in Mexico, and the head bartender, Santos Cruz, created the Margarita, and named it after the Spanish version of Peggy's name.

Lee was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Recording in 1960. The star is at 6319 Hollywood Boulevard.

Baseball's Tug McGraw, whose career with both the New York Mets and Philadelphia Phillies ranged from 1965 to 1984, named one of his pitches the Peggy Lee. He explained to The Philadelphia Inquirer: "That's the one where the hitter is out in front of it and says, 'Is that all there is?

In 1971, Lee sang the Lord's Prayer at the funeral of Louis Armstrong.

In 1972, journalist Linda Deutsch described Lee as "the Queen" of pop music.

The designer of the Miss Piggy Muppet, Bonnie Erickson, who grew up in Lee's home state of North Dakota, was inspired by Lee for the Miss Piggy character in 1974. Originally called Miss Piggy Lee, her name was shortened to Miss Piggy when the Muppet gained fame.

In 1975, Lee received an honorary doctorate in music from North Dakota State University,

In 1983, Lee had a hybrid tea rose named in her honor that was pink with a touch of peach. The Peggy Lee Rose was the 1983 American Beauty Rose of the Year.

In 2003, "There'll Be Another Spring: A Tribute to Miss Peggy Lee" was held at Carnegie Hall. Produced by recording artist Richard Barone, the sold-out event included performances by Cy Coleman, Debbie Harry, Nancy Sinatra, Rita Moreno, Marian McPartland, Chris Connor, Petula Clark, Maria Muldaur, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Quincy Jones, Shirley Horn, and others. In 2004, Barone brought the event to a sold-out Hollywood Bowl, and then to Chicago's Ravinia Festival, with expanded casts including Maureen McGovern, Jack Jones, and Bea Arthur. The Carnegie Hall concert was broadcast on NPR's JazzSet.

The Wimbledon depot building, where she and her family lived and worked, became the Midland Continental Depot Transportation Museum, featuring The Peggy Lee Exhibit, in 2012. The upper floor of the museum, where the Egstrom family once lived, features exhibits that trace Lee's career and her regional and state connection.

On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Lee's birth, May 26, 2020, The Grammy Museum hosted an online panel discussion featuring musicians Billie Eilish, k.d. lang, Eric Burton (The Black Pumas), as well as Lee's granddaughter, Holly Foster Wells, and the author of Peggy Lee: A Century of Song, Tish Oney.

Lee has been noted as an influence on artists such as Paul McCartney, Madonna, Beyoncé, k.d. lang, Elvis Costello, Diana Krall, Dusty Springfield, Rita Coolidge, Rita Moreno, and Billie Eilish.

In 2020, the ASCAP Foundation, along with Lee's family, established the annual Peggy Lee Songwriter Award. The inaugural award went to Michael Blum and Jenna Lotti for their song "Fake ID".

Work Discography

Rendezvous with Peggy Lee (Capitol, 1948; 1950 [10"]; 1955 [12"]) Benny Goodman with Peggy Lee (Columbia, 1949) My Best to You: Peggy Lee Sings (Capitol, 1950) Road to Bali: Selections from the Paramount Picture (Decca, 1952) Black Coffee (Decca, 1953; 1956 [12"]) Selections from Irving Berlin's White Christmas (Decca, 1954) Peggy: Songs in an Intimate Style (Decca, 1954) Songs from Pete Kelly's Blues (Decca, 1955) Songs from Walt Disney's Lady and the Tramp (Decca, 1955) The Man I Love (Capitol, 1957) Peggy Lee Sings with Benny Goodman (Harmony, 1957) Dream Street (Decca, 1957) Jump for Joy (Capitol, 1958) Things Are Swingin' (Capitol, 1958) Miss Wonderful (Decca, 1958) Sea Shells (Decca, 1958) Beauty and the Beat! with George Shearing (Capitol, 1959) I Like Men! (Capitol, 1959) Christmas Carousel (Capitol, 1960) Latin ala Lee! (Capitol, 1960) Pretty Eyes (Capitol, 1960) Basin Street East Proudly Presents Miss Peggy Lee (Capitol, 1961) If You Go (Capitol, 1961) Olé ala Lee (Capitol, 1960) All Aglow Again! (1960) Sugar 'n' Spice (Capitol, 1962) Blues Cross Country (Capitol, 1962) The Fabulous Peggy Lee (Decca, 1963) Mink Jazz (Capitol, 1963) The Fabulous Miss Lee (World Record Club, 1963) I'm a Woman (Capitol, 1963) Lover (Decca, 1963) In the Name of Love (Capitol, 1964) In Love Again! (Capitol, 1964) Then Was Then – Now Is Now! (Capitol, 1965) Pass Me By (Capitol, 1965) Happy Holiday (Capitol, 1965) Guitars a là Lee (Capitol, 1966) Big $pender (Capitol, 1966) So Blue (Vocalion, 1966) Extra Special! (Capitol, 1967) Somethin' Groovy! (Capitol, 1967) 2 Shows Nightly (Capitol, 1968) Is That All There Is? (Capitol, 1969) A Natural Woman (Capitol, 1969) Bridge Over Troubled Water (Capitol, 1970) Make It With You (Capitol, 1970) Crazy in the Heart (Vocalion, 1970) Where Did They Go (Capitol, 1971) Norma Deloris Egstrom from Jamestown, North Dakota (Capitol, 1972) Peggy Lee (Everest Archive, 1974) Let's Love (Atlantic, 1974) Mirrors (A&M, 1975) Peggy (Polydor, 1977) Live in London (Polydor, 1977) Walt Disney's Lady and the Tramp: All the Songs from the Film (Disneyland, 1979) Close Enough for Love (DRG, 1979) You Can Depend On Me: 14 Previously Unreleased Songs (Glendale, 1981) The Music Makers Program 116 for Broadcast Week of 4/19/82 (Music Makers, 1982) Easy Listening with Woody Herman, Dave Barbour (Artistic Art, 1984) The Uncollected Peggy Lee (Hindsight, 1985) If I Could Be with You (Sounds Rare 1986) Miss Peggy Lee Sings the Blues (Musicmasters, 1988) The Peggy Lee Songbook: There'll Be Another Spring (Musical Heritage Society, 1990) Peggy Lee with the Dave Barbour Band (Laserlight, 1991) Love Held Lightly: Rare Songs by Harold Arlen (Angel, 1993) Moments Like This (Chesky, 1993)

Chart hits Singles

Albums