[5] While studying at Hunter College at age 17 she started working as a singer for a radio show titled Gloom Dodgers in order to support her family.

[1] In 1943, jazz pianist Leonard Feather told Lewis that bandleader Benny Goodman needed a singer because Peggy Lee had left upon marrying his band's guitarist Dave Barbour.

[1] At an audition in Times Square with hundreds of women participating, Lewis earned the part as a singer and began to sing on Hotel Astor's roof with Goodman's orchestra.

[1] In 1947, Lewis began to provide the singing voice for "Miss Chiquita Banana", a cartoon television commercial character.

In 1948, she appeared in the first Ed Sullivan Show, then titled Toast of the Town, which also featured Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, and Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis].

From the 1950s to the 1980s, she made appearances in several television action series, including Those Whiting Girls, Peter Gunn, Johnny Staccato, Wagon Train, The Virginian, Tales of Wells Fargo, and Ironside.

She resumed her singing career in the 1980's and 1990s, performing at popular clubs such as the Vine St. Bar and Grill and The Hollywood Roosevelt Cinegrill in Los Angeles and Danny's Skylight Room in New York City.