The incomparable Peggy Lee (1920-2002), American pop and jazz singer, composer, and actress, was born Norma Deloris Egstrom in Jamestown, North Dakota. The grandchild of Swedish and Norwegian immigrants, her depression-era childhood was brutal: The sixth of seven children, her mother died when she was four years old; her beloved father, an alcoholic, remarried an abusive woman less than a year later. As a child, she listened to the radio for escape and inspiration, wrote songs, and sang continuously—for herself, for special occasions like birthday parties, in church choirs, glee-clubs and talent shows. [Source: New York Public Library]