Peggy Lee (born Norma Deloris Egstrom May 26, 1920 – January 21, 2002) was an award winning American jazz and popular music singer, songwriter, composer and actress.
Lee had Norwegian and Swedish ancestry. Lee was born in Jamestown, North Dakota, the seventh of eight children of Marvin Egstrom, a station agent for the Midland Continental Railroad. Her mother died when she was four years old. Lee sang professionally with KOVC radio in Valley City,...
more
Peggy Lee (born Norma Deloris Egstrom May 26, 1920 – January 21, 2002) was an award winning American jazz and popular music singer, songwriter, composer and actress.
Lee had Norwegian and Swedish ancestry. Lee was born in Jamestown, North Dakota, the seventh of eight children of Marvin Egstrom, a station agent for the Midland Continental Railroad. Her mother died when she was four years old. Lee sang professionally with KOVC radio in Valley City, North Dakota. She later had her own series on a radio show sponsored by a local restaurant that paid her a "salary" in food. Both during and after her high school years Lee sang for paltry sums on local radio stations. Radio personality Ken Kennedy (actual name: Ken Sydness) of WDAY in Fargo (the most widely listened to station in North Dakota) changed her name from Norma to Peggy Lee. Lee left home and traveled to Los Angeles at the age of 17.
She returned to North Dakota for a tonsillectomy and eventually made her way to Chicago for a gig...
less
