by A. H. Weiler

It seems only yesterday that Peggy Lee was singing “Mañana – mañana is good enough for me.” Well, mañana has come and gone, and now – Women’s Lib will be happy to hear – Miss Lee has decided that today is a good enough time to become a movie producer.

That’s right, a producer. The lovely lady with the sultry voice and the blowtorch blonde hair, who is currently singing up a storm with Alan King at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas, reports that she has acquired film rights to Clair de Lune, Pierre La Mure’s 1962 novel about Claude Debussy. She hopes to start filming in France next spring under the label of her own company, PLP Productions.

What’s a nice girl like Peggy doing in the producing game? “It’s one big, beautiful accident,” she says. “I had Clair de Lune on my bookshelf for a long time, but I didn’t read it until a house guest recommended it to me. The story fascinated me: it was so romantic – so sensual, without being pornographic. Then I found out that La Mure lived only a few blocks from me in Los Angeles, so we got together and made the deal.

Does the deal include the services of actress Peggy Lee, who was nominated for an Oscar for her performance in Pete Kelly’s Blues back in 1955? “Well, I think I’d be right for the role of an older woman whom the hero falls in love,” she says modestly.

We think she’d be right for the younger woman.