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Peggy Lee Biography

Singer / Songwriter / Actor

Name at birth: Norma Egstrom

After getting her big break as a singer with Benny Goodman's band, Peggy Lee went on to a career that mixed jazz and pop singing with movie and TV stardom. At the height of her popularity in the 1950s she was known for her sex appeal and sultry tunes, in particular the mega-hit song "Fever." Lee was nominated for an Academy Award for her role as a fading torch singer in Pete Kelly's Blues (1955, with Jack Webb), and co-wrote and performed several songs for Walt Disney's animated 1955 movie Lady and the Tramp. Lee was given a Lifetime Achievement Grammy in 1995. She died in 2002 after a lengthy illness following a 1998 stroke.

Extra credit: She was paid $3,500 for Lady and the Tramp. In 1991 she won a lawsuit against Disney that allowed her to collect royalties from the 1987 videocassette release, sales of which were estimated at the time to be $90 million.

Lee appears with Marilyn Monroe in our loop titled Mole Mania. She also appears with Mark Hamill in the loop Actors Who Do Cartoon Voices.