by Gary Giddins The first time I really listened to Peggy Lee was accidental. I’d bought a Benny Goodman collection on Harmony, got it back to the dorm late, put it on and soon fell asleep. The last thing I recalled hearing was “Why Don’t You Do Right,” and I[…]

by Gene Plaskin “I always thought of myself as a very strange little girl,” chuckles Peggy Lee, remembering herself as Norma Deloris Egstrom, the North Dakota blond abandoned as a toddler, then abused by her wicked stepmother. “My real mama was an adorable little thing – laughing, singing, playing piano[…]

by Howard Kissel Only in Hollywood movies, I had always supposed, do you see a frazzled maitre d’ hoisting tiny tables over crowds and jamming them into the already tight spots between the tables to squeeze in patrons desperate to get into a nightclub. But that was exactly the scene[…]

Terrific, fabulous, drop-dead great Peggy Lee opened at Club 53 at the Hilton last night. Before the downbeat we talked of the old days. “When I first played New York,” Miss Peggy, age 72, told me, “It was 1941 or 42. I worked the Paramount. We had an Alan Ladd,[…]

author unknown Singer Peggy Lee should get $2.3 million – not the $3.8 million her lawyers claimed she was owed – in her lawsuit against Walt Disney Co. over the videocassette profits from Lady and the Tramp, a judge ruled yesterday. Last month, a jury awarded Lee damages against the[…]

author unknown The stars of the film were cartoon canines, but the soul of the 1955 Disney classic Lady and the Tramp belonged to jazz diva Peggy Lee. In addition to penning the lyrics to the film’s six songs, Lee slunk through a Pekingese torch song; provided the dulcet tones[…]