Part Three by Alfred G. Aronowitz Peggy Lee spent Thanksgiving of 1961 in Polyclinic Hospital. Max, from over at the Stage, sent her a turkey, sliced, deboned and put back together again, but the doctors and the nurses ate it. Peggy was too close to her beyond to even know[…]

Part Two by Alfred G. Aronowitz Sitting in her bedroom and looking at her painted face, still made up for the spotlight, I test myself to see if I resent the falseness of a woman ravaged by so many years and so many problems trying so hard to look as[…]

Part One by Alfred G. Aronowitz Peggy Lee smoked her first cigarette when she was 14. She was singing for 50 cents a night with Doc Haines and His Orchestra, a band of students working their way through college one-nighters in North Dakota. It was 1934 and she thought she[…]

author unknown Our enthusiasm for show business is such that we still like to watch TV reruns of The Glenn Miller Story and of movies in which Dan Dailey quits the act so that he won’t keep his girlfriend-partner from making it big as single, and even of movies in[…]

by John Lissner The musically-motivated singer, jazz or otherwise, is all about passe in our contemporary musical climate. The meticulous musicianship of Jo Stafford, Helen O’Connell or Anita O’Day in their swing band or post-Big Band days is, unhappily, an anachronism. To capture the public’s attention today, a gal singer[…]

by Charles Mangel The first time she got up to sing, she almost undressed the performer in front of her. It was Jamestown, North Dakota, and Norma Egstrom, five, was waiting to sing in a church play. “We were in a row, and each of us had to sing. All[…]