Vintage postcard, no. 330. Photo: Warner Bros.
Dutch collector card, no. 42.
An elegant, intimate performer with a minimalist style
Peggy Lee was born Norma Dolores Egstrom in Jamestown, North Dakota, in 1920. She was the seventh of the eight children of Selma Amelia (née Anderson) Egstrom and Marvin Olof Egstrom, a station agent for the Midland Continental Railroad. At age four, her mother died. Peggy's father remarried Minnie Schaumberg Wiese, but he later left home, leaving Peggy's care entrusted to a stepmother who physically abused her.
Peggy used singing as an escape. She later memorialised this in the calypso number 'One Beating a Day', one of 22 songs she co-wrote for the autobiographical musical 'Peg' (1983), in which she made her Broadway debut at the age of 62. Young Peggy worked as a milkmaid, later turning to singing for money in her teens. While singing on a local radio station in Fargo, the program director there suggested she change her name to Peggy Lee. She developed her trademark sultry purr, having decided to compete with the noisy crowd with subtlety rather than volume.
Peggy's big break came in 1941 when Benny Goodman hired her to sing with his band after hearing her perform in a Chicago nightclub. She replaced vocalist Helen Forrest. 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 films, Stage Door Canteen (Frank Borzage, 1943) and The Powers Girl (Norman Z. McLeod, 1943). In March 1943, Lee married Dave Barbour, a guitarist in Goodman's band. She had to leave the band and became a housewife.
In 1947, she drifted back to songwriting and occasional recording sessions for Capitol Records. She had hits with 'Golden Earrings', 'It's a Good Day', and the no. 1 hit 'Manana', which she also wrote. Later, such classics followed as 'Fever' in 1958, 'Lover', 'Big Spender' and 'Is That All There Is?' - the latter winning her a Grammy Award in 1969. Peggy's vocal style provided a distinctive imprint to countless swing tunes, ballads and big band numbers. She was considered the type of performer equally capable of interpreting a song as uniquely as Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald and Bessie Smith.
Peggy Lee also became known as a film actress. Gary Brumburgh at IMDb: "An elegant, intimate performer with a minimalist style, her recording and supper club fame eventually led to movie offers". She appeared opposite Danny Thomas in The Jazz Singer (Michael Curtiz, 1952), a remake of the Al Jolson film, The Jazz Singer (Alan Crosland, 1927). She made her mark in Hollywood, winning an Academy Award nomination for her role as a singer who battles the bottle in the jazz saga, Pete Kelly's Blues (Jack Webb, 1955).
French postcard by Tobler. Image: The Walt Disney Company.
Belgian postcard by Editions Corna. Image: Walt Disney Productions. Peg in Lady and the Tramp (Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson, Hamilton Luske, 1955).
French postcard by Imp. Georges Lang, Paris, offered by Chocolats Tobler. Image: Walt Disney.
The namesake of the Margarita cocktail
Peggy Lee composed songs for the Walt Disney animated classic Lady and the Tramp (Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson, Hamilton Luske, 1955). She also voiced four different characters in the film: Darling, both the Siamese cats, and Peg, a broken-down old showgirl of a dog, whose provocative walk was based on the stage-prowl of Peggy Lee. In 1991, 36 years later, she won $2.3 million against Disney to recoup royalties from videocassette sales of Lady and the Tramp. The case hinged on a clause in her pre-video-era contract barring the sale of 'transcriptions' of the film without her approval.
But music was her first love, and she continued on the road, crossing over occasionally from the easy jazz to the pop field. At the age of 62, she made her Broadway debut in the autobiographical musical 'Peg' (1983). It was one of the few projects in her life that was not a success. Lee was nominated for twelve Grammy Awards, winning Best Contemporary Vocal Performance for her 1969 hit 'Is That All There Is?' Her 1989 album, 'Peggy Sings the Blues', was a Grammy Award nominee.
Peggy was a prolific songwriter and arranger, and her 1990 album 'The Peggy Lee Songbook' contained four songs she wrote with guitarist John Chiodini. Peggy also wrote for jazz greats Duke Ellington, who called her "The Queen", Johnny Mercer, and composer Quincy Jones. Also in 1990, Peggy was awarded the coveted Pied Piper Award presented by the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP). In 1995, she was given the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
Peggy's private life was racked by physical ailments, a near-fatal fall in 1976, diabetes, and she was semi-confined to a wheelchair since the 1980s, but she valiantly continued performing. She was married four times, to guitarist Dave Barbour, actor Brad Dexter, actor Dewey Martin, and actor Jack del Rio, all marriages ending in divorce. She and David Barbour had a daughter, Nicki Lee Foster (1943), her only child. Peggy and Dave were on the verge of a reconciliation in 1965, but he died of a heart attack before the couple got back together. At the time, Dave had divorced her because he felt his drinking was not good for his daughter. They engaged again four days before he died. Dave claimed he had been sober for 13 years by then and was ready to remarry Peggy.
In 1998, Peggy Lee had a stroke, and in 2002, she died of a heart attack in Bel Air, Los Angeles. Just a week before her death, she earned a preliminary approval of $4.75 million in a class lawsuit (she was the lead plaintiff of a group of Decca recording artists) for royalties against Universal Music Group. Gary Brumburgh: "Miss Peggy Lee", as she was always introduced, was a class act all the way and, in talent, is often deemed a smooth, self-contained combination of Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday." And according to IMDb, Lee is the namesake of the Margarita cocktail. In 1948. Santos Cruz, a bartender at the famed Texas nightclub the Balinese Room, mixed up a new drink especially for her. He named it for the Spanish version of 'Margaret', which is the formal version of 'Peggy'.
Dutch postcard by Takken / 't Sticht, no A.X. 934. Photo: Fotoatchief Maandblad PHILHARMONIC.
American Arcade card.
Sources: Kelly E.F. Wiebe (IMDb), Gary Brumburgh (IMDb), Wikipedia and IMDb.
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