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| via Peggy Lee.com |
Born Norma Delores Egstrom in North Dakota in 1920, Peggy Lee endured something that makes-or-breaks many women, the loss of her mother at an early age, and an absent/uncaring father. According to Wikipedia:
Her mother died when Lee was just four years old.[3] Afterward, her father married Min Schaumber, who treated her with great cruelty while her alcoholic father did little to stop it.[4] As a result, she developed her musical talent and took several part-time jobs so that she could be away from home.
When the Crowds Were Loud, She Went Soft
From the official Peggy Lee site:It was at the Doll House in Palm Springs, California that Peggy Lee first developed the soft and "cool" style that has become her trademark. Unable to shout above the clamor of the Doll House audience, Miss Lee tried to snare its attention by lowering her voice. The softer she sang the quieter the audience became. She has never forgotten the secret, and it has given her style its distinctive combination of the delicate and the driving, the husky and the purringly seductive. One of the members of the Doll House audience was Frank Bering, the owner of Chicago’s Ambassador West Hotel, who invited her to sing in his establishment’s Buttery Room.
Benny Goodman discovered Peggy Lee’s vocalizing in the Buttery Room at a time when he was looking for a replacement for Helen Forrest. Miss Lee joined Goodman’s band in July, 1941, when the band was at the height of its popularity, and for over two years she toured the United States with the most famous swing outfit of the day, playing hotel engagements, college proms, theater dates, and radio programs.
As The Penguin Encyclopedia of Popular Music observes, "Her smoky, laid-back sexuality had something teasingly neurotic about it, vulnerable but also untouchable in the end." Like her label-mates Frank Sinatra and Nat Cole, she achieved and sustained vast popularity without compromising her refined musical principles. She assembled a wide-ranging repertoire – ballads, swing and Latin tunes, novelty numbers – and was one of the few white singers capable of interpreting black music without condescension, introducing bluesy songs previously recorded by Little Willie John, Joe Williams and Ray Charles to mainstream listeners. Her infallible rhythmic instincts served her well at all tempos, and her chameleonlike ability to shift character from song to song enabled her to communicate a rainbow of emotions.
She was nominated for 12 Grammies, ironically winning only two for Is That All There Is? (She was also given a Lifetime Achievement Award in 1995.)
Yes, She Liked Men
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| Frank Sinatra and Peggy Lee (Photo credit: classic film scans) |
"I learned courage from Buddha, Jesus, Lincoln, and Mr. Cary Grant," she said.
And She Inspired Miss Piggy
Bonnie Erickson in an interview with Smithsonian Magazine:My mother used to live in North Dakota where Peggy Lee sang on the local radio station before she became a famous jazz singer. When I first created Miss Piggy I called her Miss Piggy Lee—as both a joke and an homage. Peggy Lee was a very independent woman, and Piggy certainly is the same. But as Piggy's fame began to grow, nobody wanted to upset Peggy Lee, especially because we admired her work. So, the Muppet's name was shortened to Miss Piggy.
In honor of Valentines' Day, coming up, I must share this clip from my favorite romantic movie.
Later, when Disney discovered this cool new technology called videotape and began making a boatload of money by selling their back catalogs in videotape format, they figured no way Peggy Lee and their other musicians were entitled to share in the profits. After all, they hadn't signed contracts that included videotape, had they?
Disney Messed With the Wrong Bitch
Miss Peggy Lee, and after a long court battle, the courts, saw it very differently. Without her efforts, and the precedent setting court case, many recording and other artists who signed contracts in the days before videotape, DVR, live streaming (and whatever comes next) would not be receiving the royalties they do on works from classic works like Lady and the Tramp.
What A Dame!
In her seventies, despite polymelitis rheumatosis that put her in a wheelchair, a broken pelvis, diabetes, and (rumors of) heavy drinking, Peggy Lee was still giving sell-out stage performances. Writing. Painting pictures.
Miss Peggy Lee died in 2002 at the age of 82.
Future Slut of the Month Candidates:
- Mae West
- Joan of Kent
- Cleopatra
- Sandra Fluke
- Morgan le Fey
- Aspasia
- Madonna
- Liz Taylor
- Dorothy Parker
- Kassandra of Troy
- Tullia d'Aragona
- Marie Antoinette
- Lillie Langtry
- Anne Boleyn
- Eleanor Roosevelt
- Shelley Winters
- Mary, Queen of Scots
- "Klondike Kate" Rockwell
- Catherine de Medici
- Jezebel
- Lucrezia Borgia
- Umrao Jaan
- Eleanor of Aquitaine
- Theodora (wife of Emperor Justinian of the Byzantine Empire)
- Jeanne d'Arc
- Margaret Sanger
- Hwang Jin-i
- Coco Chanel
- Sappho
- Joan of Kent
- Catherine the Great
- the "Unsinkable" Molly Brown
- Eva Perón
- Susan B. Anthony
- Diana, Princess of Wales
- Anaïs Nin
- Hillary Rodham Clinton
- Mata Hari
- Malala Yousafzai
Who's your favorite slut?
Vote for one on this list, or name another slut to be added to it.
