Peggy Lee (1920 - 2002)
Jamestown,, North Dakota, USA
Peggy Lee's Biography
Introduction
Peggy Lee
Born Norma Deloris Egstrom May 26, 1920 Jamestown, North Dakota, U.S.
Died January 21, 2002 (aged 81) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Resting place Ashes buried at the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery, Westwood, Los Angeles, U.S.
Known for vocals, recordings, acting. The Jazz Tree Disney's Lady and the Tramp
Spouse(s)
Dave Barbour (m. 1943; div. 1951) Brad Dexter (m. 1953; div. 1953) Dewey Martin (m. 1956; div. 1958) Jack Del Rio (m. 1964; div. 1965)
Children 1
Parent(s) Marvin Olof Egstrom Selma Amelia Anderson
Musical career
Origin Valley City, North Dakota
Genres Jazz popular
Occupation(s)
Singer - songwriter - actress - composer
Instrument: Vocals
Years active 1941–2000
Labels
Capitol - Decca - Atlantic - A&M Polydor
Associated acts
Benny Goodman 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 Victor Young
Norma Deloris Egstrom (May 26, 1920 – January 21, 2002), known professionally as Peggy Lee, was an American jazz and popular music singer, songwriter, composer, and actress, over a career spanning six 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.
Early life
Lee was born Norma Deloris Egstrom in Jamestown, North Dakota on May 26, 1920, the seventh of the eight children of Selma Amelia (née Anderson) Egstrom and Marvin Olof Egstrom, a station agent for the Midland Continental Railroad. She and 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.
Lee first sang professionally over KOVC radio in Valley City, North Dakota. She later had her own series on a radio show sponsored by a local restaurant that paid her salary in food.
Both during and after her high school years, Lee sang for small sums on local radio stations.
Radio personality Ken Kennedy, of WDAY in Fargo, North Dakota (the most widely heard station in North Dakota), changed her name to Peggy Lee.[6] Lee left home and traveled to Los Angeles at the age of 17.
She returned to North Dakota for a tonsillectomy, and was later noticed by hotel owner Frank Bering while working at the Doll House in Palm Springs, California. It was here that she developed her trademark sultry purr, having decided to compete with the noisy crowd with subtlety rather than volume. Bering offered her a gig at The Buttery Room, a nightclub in the Ambassador Hotel East in Chicago. There, she was noticed by bandleader Benny Goodman. According to Lee, "Benny's then-fiancée, Lady Alice Duckworth, came into The Buttery, and she was very impressed. So the next evening she brought Benny in, because they were looking for a replacement for Helen Forrest. And although I didn't know, I was it. He was looking at me strangely, I thought, but it was just his preoccupied way of looking. I thought that he didn't like me at first, but it just was that he was preoccupied with what he was hearing." She joined his band in 1941 and stayed for two years.
Recording career
In 1942 Lee had her first No. 1 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.
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Family Tree & Friends
Peggy's Family Tree
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1920 - 2002 World Events
Refresh this page to see various historical events that occurred during Peggy's lifetime.
In 1920, in the year that Peggy Lee was born, Italian born factory worker Nicola Sacco and fish peddler Bartolomeo Vanzetti were picked up by police on May 5th in connection with the April 15th murder and robbery of a guard and a paymaster at the Slater and Morrill Shoe Company in South Braintree, Mass. Although in later years they were thought to be innocent, they were anarchists and were convicted of the crime and put to death.
In 1934, by the time she was only 14 years old, on July 22nd, gangster John Dillinger was killed in Chicago. His gang had robbed banks and police stations, among other charges, and he was being hunted by J. Edgar Hoover, head of the FBI - although many in the public saw him as a "Robin Hood". A madam from a brothel in which he was hiding became an informer for the FBI and, after a shootout with FBI agents, Dillinger was shot and died.
In 1960, by the time she was 40 years old, on May 1st, an American CIA U-2 spy plane, piloted by Francis Gary Powers, was shot down by a surface-to-air missile over the Soviet Union. Powers ejected and survived but was captured. The U.S. claimed that the U-2 was a "weather plane" but Powers was convicted in the Soviet Union of espionage. He was released in 1962 after 1 year, 9 months and 10 days in prison.
In 1982, at the age of 62 years old, Peggy was alive when on September 14th, Princess Grace of Monaco (American actress Grace Kelly), 52, died of injuries when her car plunged off a mountain road. Her 17 year old daughter, Stephanie, was also in the car and suffered serious injuries but recovered. It's believed that the accident was caused when Princess Grace, who was driving, had a mild stroke.
In 1998, when she was 78 years old, on December 19th, the movie Titanic - based on the 1912 sinking of the ship and starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet - was released. Winning 11 Oscars, it was the first film to gross over a billion dollars and eventually grossed over $2 billion.
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