Whenever I watch Britney
Spears on TV, somehow I think of Peggy Lee. Miss Spears exhibits
a lot of enthusiasm and skin when she sings (Damon Runyon would
have said she wears no more costume than would pad a crutch) and
the most movement I ever saw out of Miss Peggy Lee was a little
twitch of her fingers. And she wore clothes you could wear to
church if you are of a religious bent. But the thing is, they
both get everything there is out of a song. Spears just has to
work harder and flash navel.
Who could get more
passion out of Fever, pride out of I’m a Woman and
fun out of Mañana that Miss Peggy? And without moving
a muscle? Well, moving her hands a little or maybe even a trace
of shoulder action. I use the past tense because unfortunately
for us Peggy Lee aficionados she doesn’t perform any more. She
hasn’t since she had a stroke in 1998, or recorded, either.
Before her stroke Miss
Peggy had been confined to a wheelchair several years but even
then made occasional appearances in New York clubs and cut a duet
with Gilbert O. Sullivan in 1993.
Of Scandinavian descent,
she was born Norma Deloris Engstrom in 1921 in North Dakota. And
her early years were not easy for her. She was only four when
her mother died and when her father remarried didn’t get along
with her stepmother. Her voice eventually got her away from all
that. She sang on a radio station in her home town, Jamestown,
North Dakota and in nearby Wimbleton, where she grew up and went
to high school (there are plans for a Peggy Lee cultural center
and museum there).
After she found a waitressing
job in Fargo she got on the radio there, where the station manager
had her change her name to Peggy Lee. She tried California a couple
of times, first in 1937, but failed to connect. In 1941 she hooked
up with a vocal group in Chicago called The Four Of Us,
which eventually led her to a job as vocalist with Benny Goodman.
Which turned out to be more than just a boost to her career. She
found a husband there. Dave Barbour, Goodman’s lead guitarist.
She wrote some songs with him, including Fever and Mañana.
Her singing and composing
career flourished in the Forties and Fifties and she started getting
movie roles as well. She was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress
Oscar in 1955 in a picture called Pete Kelly’s Blues and
wrote He’s a Tramp, for Walt Disney’s Lady and the Tramp
and also did the voices of a couple of the cat characters.
In the early Eighties
she starred on Broadway in a musical, Peg, which closed
after a short run. And because of health she has since appeared
professionally only occasionally.
Dody and I met Miss
Peggy’s daughter, Nicki Lee Foster, once and are friends with
a lady who used to work for Miss Peggy as cook, seamstress and
general helper, but never met Miss Peggy herself.
We’ve just received
the sad news that Miss Lee has lost her long fight with illness.
She was a great, rare talent that will live on in her work. If
you have comments or a tribute to this memorable artist, the lady
who runs her Peggy Lee Enterprises, Holly Foster-Wells, says you
may e-mail her at mail@peggyleeenterprises.com.
David Westheimer lives
with his wife of 57 years, Dody, in the same Los Angeles apartment
they moved into from Houston, Texas 40 years ago. Their son, Fred,
is a Senior Vice-President at the William Morris Agency and his
younger brother, Eric, is a veterinarian. Succeeding generations
include five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. As a journalist,
David worked for Oveta Culp Hobby. At 83, David Westheimer continues
to write, and not just for Senior Women. His latest effort, "The
Great Wounded Bird", his recollections of World War II, winner
of the Texas Review 1999 poetry prize, was published this year
by Texas Review Press and may be ordered from Amazon Books, where
it is 1,458,159th on their sales list, from Barnes & Noble and
Borders Books. He is a novelist and a retired Air Force Officer.
He can be reached for a repertoire of feigned curmudgeonly remarks
at: DWestheime@aol.com.
