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By MAUREEN BYRNE
© St. Petersburg Times, published May 26, 2000
Peggy Lee was born Norma Deloris Egstrom on May 26, 1920, in Jamestown, N.D., where her father was a railroad station agent. When she was 4, her mother died.
She sang in the church choir and was singing professionally by the time she was 14. After high school, she moved to Fargo, where she was discovered by Ken Kennedy, program director of radio station WDAY.
He was so impressed by her talent that he put her on the air within an hour of meeting her. But the name Norma Egstrom wouldn't do, so he decided on Peggy Lee.
In 1941, Benny Goodman discovered Lee and signed her up with his orchestra. She stayed with Goodman for two years, singing on a number of his hit recordings, including Blues in the Night andSomebody Else Is Taking My Place.
In 1942, she made her first record, Why Don't You Do Right? It was an immediate hit, and Lee's name soon was a household word. She since has recorded 655 songs and 63 albums, many of them gold.
In 1943, Lee married Dave Barbour, Goodman's guitarist, and retired from performing to become a full-time wife and mother. But retirement didn't last long. Lee began writing songs, penning more than 500 during her career. Barbour and Lee wrote many of Lee's earlier hits, including Manana and It's a Good Day.
It wasn't long before she resumed singing, recording two songs for a four-disc set called New American Jazz. In later years, she wrote a variety of music with the likes of Duke Ellington, Cy Young and Quincy Jones.
Lee's professional highlights include establishing the use of Latin rhythms in American popular music, winning an Oscar nomination for her role in the 1955 movie Pete Kelly's Blues and releasing one of the biggest and most influential hits, Fever, which has been remade by numerous artists, including Madonna.
Lee earned the respect of fellow jazz musicians.
Said Duke Ellington: "If I'm the duke, man, Peggy Lee is the queen."
"There's no one else like her, and I presume there never will be," Benny Goodman said.
"She's solid," Count Basie said.
In the 1950s, Lee's career expanded to include television specials and movies, including co-creating the score for the Walt Disney feature-length cartoon, Lady and the Tramp. She also lent her voice to five of the characters in the 1954 film.
Throughout the 1960s, Lee performed extensively, singing at concerts and on television and making records, despite poor health, including diabetes. Her health continued to decline in the 1980s. She underwent four angioplasties and double-bypass surgery in 1985 and and suffered a stroke in 1987.
In 1983, she starred in the one-woman show Peg on Broadway. It was unsuccessful and closed within a month.
Lee received a Lifetime Achievement Award in 1985 from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers.