"One night in the elevator up to the hotel room where the singer would make-up, do her hair, and don the gown, a stranger asked, 'Are you Peggy Lee?' Her answer: 'Not yet, I'm not.'"
We have another centenary to celebrate today, dear reader - and it's one very close to our hearts.
In the mid-1930s, Miss Norma Deloris Egstrom wisely quit the unhappiness of her home life [weak and ineffective alcoholic father; abusive wicked stepmother] and her job in a bakery in rural North Dakota, and headed out into a world that offered opportunities for a pretty blonde with a remarkable jazzy singing voice. The newly-renamed Peggy Lee (for it is she) wound her way through a succession of nightclub engagements in California and Minneapolis before ending up in Chicago. It was here that none other than Mr Benny Goodman discovered this sultry, smokey-voiced singer just at a time when he was looking for a replacement for Helen Forrest. And the rest, as they say, is history...
From the Big Band era, through Walt Disney's Lady and the Tramp, jazz standards and calypso novelties, to the glittering legend (and gay icon) that she became, Miss Lee was always at the top of her game. The great and the good, including Ray Charles, Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald, Lena Horne, Marlene Dietrich, Cary Grant, Jimmy Durante, Sammy Davis, Jr., Joan Crawford, Art Carney, Louis Armstrong and Judy Garland all queued to see her, heaping on the praise. Duke Ellington said of her: "If I'm the Duke, man, Peggy Lee is Queen." She allegedly had affairs with Frank Sinatra, Quincy Jones and Robert Preston, among many others; she married four times, three of them briefly, and outlived just about everyone in her retinue - to the end, sick and in a wheelchair, she was the consummate performer, and at any and every gala appearance she never failed to turn heads as she made her entrance.
We at Dolores Delargo Towers (inevitably) adore the woman, and have a huge swathe of her back catalogue in our multifaceted music collection. Including these [featuring the campest performance ever of her greatest hit]:
All hail Miss Peggy Lee! (26th May 1920 – 21st January 2002)
I don't understand why comments on my phone insist on anonymity. Maybe the phone is ashamed of me. It's me, mrpeenee.
ReplyDeleteI adore Peggy Lee, but who doesn't? She sang a cover of Ghostriders in the Sky that defies logic. And that version of Fever is pretty astonishing.
Even your phone's out to get you... Jx
DeletePS another personal favourite of Miss Egstrom's is (of course) her title song for the uber-camp Johnny Guitar.
What a perfect Birthday tribute to an unforgettable singer! I started snapping my fingers on "Fever" as everyone does! xoxo
ReplyDeleteImpossible to resist! Jx
Deleteher version of "fever" and "he's a tramp" - classic recordings from a classy dame!
ReplyDeleteThere is only ONE version of Fever... Jx
DeleteAhh...thank you for this. I had an old, scratched 78 of 'Fever' when I was a pre-teen.
ReplyDeleteAnd now we're all "old and scratched". Sigh. Jx
DeletePeggy Lee had so much talent and she was the epitome of cool.
ReplyDeleteBy all accounts, she was a bit of a nightmare to deal with - but she certainly was cooler-than-cool! Jx
DeleteA Legend !
ReplyDeleteTruly deserving of the title! Jx
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