Peggy Lee

Peggy Lee

The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition | 2008 | The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Copyright 2008 Columbia University Press. (Hide copyright information) Copyright

Peggy Lee 1920-2002, American singer and songwriter, b. Jamestown, N.D., as Norma Deloris Egstrom. Lee became famous for her singular voice—sexy, subtle, simultaneously smoky and cool—and her unique jazz-inflected interpretations of popular tunes. She began singing as a teenager and hit the big time in 1941 when Benny Goodman hired her. She scored her first big hit in 1942 with "Why Don't You Do Right?" Leaving Goodman's band in 1943, she became a solo act and cowrote (with husband Dave Barbour) and performed a number of popular songs including "It's a Good Day" (1947) and the 1948 chart-topper "Mañana." Lee wrote or cowrote more than 200 songs and recorded more than 600, among them the sultry "Fever" (1958) and "Is That All There Is?" (1969), her late-career anthem. Lee was in several films, notably acting in The Jazz Singer (1952) and Pete Kelly's Blues (1955), voiced such animated features as The Lady and the Tramp (1955), appeared on numerous television programs, and continued to perform into the 1990s.

Bibliography: See her autobiography (1989, rev. ed. 2002); chronology by R. Strom (2005); biography by P. Richmond (2006).

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Withers, Googie

The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre | 1996 | | © The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre 1996, originally published by Oxford University Press 1996. (Hide copyright information) Copyright

Withers, Googie [ Georgette Lizette] (1917– ), English actress, born in India, who studied for the stage under Italia Conti and made her début in the children's play The Windmill Man (1929) by Frederick Bowyer. She was then seen in the chorus of the musical comedy Nice Goings On (1933) before appearing in J. B. Priestley's Duet in Floodlight (1935); after N. C. Hunter's Ladies and Gentlemen (1937) she was in another Priestley play They Came to a City (1943). In 1945 she took over the part of Amanda in Coward's Private Lives, following it with Lee in Ronald Millar's farcical comedy Champagne for Delilah (1949) and Georgie Elgin in Odets's Winter Journey (1952), giving one of her finest performances as the supportive wife of an alcoholic actor. Later in 1952 she succeeded Peggy Ashcroft as Hester Collyer in Rattigan's The Deep Blue Sea, a part in which in 1955 she toured Australia and New Zealand with her Australian-born actor husband John McCallum (1914– ), who partnered her in several later productions. In 1958 she played Gertrude in Hamlet and Beatrice in Much Ado about Nothing at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre. In the same year her husband entered theatrical management with J. C. Williamson Theatres Ltd. in Australia, and much of her later acting has been done in Australia and New Zealand. She made her début in New York in 1961 in Graham Greene's The Complaisant Lover and was seen in Edinburgh and London in 1963 in Ionesco's Exit the King, and at the Strand Theatre in 1967 in Shaw's Getting Married. She then returned to Australia for some years, touring and playing Ranevskaya in Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard (1972) for the Melbourne Theatre Company. In 1976 she was back in England, appearing at Chichester and in London as Lady Kitty in Maugham's The Circle. She was again at Chichester as Lady Bracknell in Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest (1979) and in such productions as Priestley's Time and the Conways (1983) and Anouilh's Ring round the Moon (1988).

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PHYLLIS HARTNOLL and PETER FOUND. "Withers, Googie." The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre. 1996. Retrieved December 25, 2009 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O79-WithersGoogie.html

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Peggy Lee: Words, but No Music
Newspaper article from: The Washington Post; 2/8/1989; ; 700+ words ; MISS PEGGY LEE An Autobiography By Peggy Lee Donald I. Fine. 280 pp. $18...Deloris Egstrom metamorphose into Peggy Lee? These are fascinating questions, but don't look for the answers in "Miss Peggy Lee." Her autobiography-which we...
Columbia Records Set to Release 'Bette Midler Sings The Peggy Lee Songbook' as Dualdisc & Traditional CD.
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Capitol Records & Fans Worldwide Wish Miss Peggy Lee a Happy 80th Birthday.
Business Wire; 5/15/2000; 700+ words ; ...ENTERTAINMENT WIRE)--May 15, 2000 Miss Peggy Lee celebrates her 80th birthday on May 26 and...Capitol Records. The 4-CD box set, "Miss Peggy Lee" is the ultimate historical package of Peggy Lee's Capitol Records recording career...
Peggy Lee had the kind of voice that owned songs.
Newspaper article from: The Orlando Sentinel (Orlando, Fla.) (via Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service); 1/22/2002; 700+ words ; ...Swing Benny Goodman. And Miss Peggy Lee. That was her title. Always. Miss Peggy Lee. Lee died of a heart attack...leaving Goodman's band, and Lee was hired to replace her...and always pick out who was Peggy Lee, Rosemary Clooney, Sarah...
Profile: Peggy Lee remembered for her music
Transcript from: NPR All Things Considered; 1/22/2002; ; 700+ words ; ...00-00-0000 Profile: Peggy Lee remembered for her music...Duke Ellington said of Peggy Lee, `If I'm the Duke...spaces in between. Ms. LEE: (From audio file) That...through the night. MICHEL: Peggy Lee didn't have a big...
HE SPREADS PEGGY LEE `FEVER!'
Newspaper article from: The Boston Globe; 5/2/2003; ; 700+ words ; ...Fever!," the tribute to Peggy Lee that he and his wife, singer...there, they know who Peggy Lee is. Q. How did it all...t we do something about Peggy Lee? You and Peggy are...your own experiences with Peggy Lee, something not too many...
Delving into Peggy Lee's Steamy Mystique
Transcript from: Weekend Edition - Saturday (NPR); 5/6/2006; ; 700+ words ; ...NPR) 05-06-2006 Delving into Peggy Lee's Steamy Mystique Host: SCOTT...much. And she was right. SIMON: Peggy Lee was born Norma Egstrom in Nortonville...night, gets a bite to eat, and sees Peggy Lee singing, and says, Benny, I think...
PEGGY LEE INSPIRES A RUNNING `FEVER' TRIBUTE TO SINGER COMES TO STONEHAM
Newspaper article from: The Boston Globe; 9/29/2002; ; 700+ words ; ...show celebrating singer Peggy Lee got its start in Las Vegas...Fever! A Tribute to Miss Peggy Lee" with his wife, Lezlie...cool sensuality, Peggy Lee, who died in January at...and Frank Sinatra. "Peggy Lee was probably the most...
Peggy Lee, sultry-voiced singer of `Fever,' dies at age 81
News Wire article from: AP Worldstream; 1/22/2002; ; 700+ words ; 00-00-0000 Dateline: LOS ANGELES Peggy Lee, the singer-composer whose smoky, insinuating...decade netted her a Grammy nomination for Miss Peggy Lee Sings The Blues in 1989 and another for The Peggy Lee Songbook: There' ll Be Another Spring...
Profile: Singer Peggy Lee dies at the age of 81 after a long career in music and TV
Transcript from: NPR Morning Edition; 1/22/2002; ; 627 words ; 00-00-0000 Profile: Singer Peggy Lee dies at the age of 81 after a long...00 Noon (Soundbite of music) Ms. PEGGY LEE: (Singing) You had aplenty...too. BOB EDWARDS, host: Singer Peggy Lee has died. Her cool, yet sultry...

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In the End, the Joke's on Us

(6/11/2007 5:17:05 PM)