January 21 - Peggy Lee

On this day, in 2002, Norma Deloris Egstrom passed away in Bel Air, California. Norma was born on May 26, 1920 in Jamestown, North Dakota as the seventh child (of eight) of a station agent for a railroad and a stay-at-home mom. She first professional gigs as a singer were on local radio station KOVC. At one point she had her own show which she was paid for in food (a local restaurant was her sponsor). During high school, she made appearances on WDAY out of Fargo. It was there that one of the DJs changed her name from Norma to Peggy Lee, a moniker she would keep for the rest of her life. At the age of 17, Peggy left North Dakota to seek her fortune in Los Angeles, California.

Her first break came when she was singing in a joint called the Doll House in Palm Springs. She'd already developed her signature sultriness when she decided that rather than out shout the patrons, she'd tickle their eardrums for attention instead. An agent from Chicago, Frank Bering, heard her and offered up a spot in The Buttery Room, the nightclub in the Ambassador Hotel. Once she moved to Chicago, Benny Goodman caught her act. Benny was losing his singer and decided that Peggy should be the replacement. She joined the big band in 1941 and spent two years belting out tunes with them, including a pair of 1943 films, Stage Door Canteen and The Powers Girl. That same year she married a guitarist in the orchestra, Dave Barbour, and had a number one hit with Why Don't You Do Right? She left the band in the spring, fully intending to be nothing more than a wife and mother. Fortunately, her husband was able to eventually persuade her otherwise.

Image copyright Warner Brothers

By 1947, Peggy had begun to write songs again and make an occasional recording. The following year, her retirement officially ended when her album Manana became the top selling record of the year. She hit the radio waves again as co-host of The Chesterfield Supper Club and make frequent appearances on both Jimmy Durante's and Bing Crosby's shows. She then recorded one of her most popular songs, Fever, to which she added her own lyrics about Romeo, Juliet, John Smith and Pocahontas. The song cemented her relationship with Capitol Records, whom she would deal with for most of the next three decades.

In 1952, Peggy starred opposite Danny Thomas in a remake of The Jazz Singer. Three years later she played an alcoholic singer, Rose Hopkins, in Pete Kelly's Blues, earning herself an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress.

Image copyright Disney

Peggy joined the Disney family in 1955 in a big way as an integral part of Lady and the Tramp. Not only does she provide the voice for four characters in the film but she wrote the songs as well. You here her as Darling, the jailhouse pup Peg and both the Siamese Cats, Si and Am. She herself sings La La Lu, He's a Tramp, What Is a Baby? and The Siamese Cat Song throughout the movie as all of her different characters. Peggy was also the reason that Lady and the Tramp was out of print for so long on home video back in the day. Under her contract with Disney, she retained the rights to all transcriptions of her songs in the picture. In 1988, she sued claiming that videotape editions were transcriptions. This was an issue as the movie had already been released and had sold really well (which I'm sure fueled the law suit). It quickly went back in the vault and after three years of legal wrangling, the company settled with her for $3.2 million. Tramp wouldn't be released again until 1998.

Peggy would continue to release records, write songs and perform well into the Nineties. Near the end of her career, she would sometimes sing from the confines of a wheelchair, but she still put on a hell of a show. She was nominated for a dozen Grammy Awards over her lifetime, winning Best Contemporary Vocal Performance in 1969 and a Lifetime Achievement Grammy in 1995. In 1999, she was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. After years of poorly managed diabetes and declining health, she would suffer a fatal heart attack at her home in 2002. She was 91.