Norma Deloris Egstrom[a] (May 26, 1920 – January 21, 2002), known professionally as Peggy Lee, was an American jazz and popular music singer, songwriter, and actress whose career spanned seven decades.

Called the "Queen of American pop music",[10] Lee recorded more than 1,100 masters and co-wrote over 270 songs.

In Wimbledon, Lee was the female singer for a six-piece college dance band with leader Lyle "Doc" Haines.

In October 1937, radio personality Ken Kennedy, of WDAY in Fargo (the most widely heard station in North Dakota), auditioned her and put her on the air that day, but not before he changed her name to Peggy Lee.

Her first job was seasonal work on Balboa Island, Newport Beach, as a short order cook and waitress at Harry's Cafe.

[20] The following year, remaining in North Dakota, she was hired to perform regularly at The Powers Hotel in Fargo, and toured with both the Sev Olson and the Will Osborne Orchestras.

[17]While performing at The Doll House, Lee met Frank Bering, the owner of the Ambassador East and West in Chicago.

I thought that he didn't like me at first, but it just was that he was preoccupied with what he was hearing.She joined his band in August 1941 and made her first recording, singing "Elmer's Tune".

I think that's not too bad a rule, but you can't help falling in love with somebody.... when she left the band that spring [1943], her intention was to quit the footlights altogether and become Mrs. Barbour, fulltime housewife.

"Mañana", written by Lee and Barbour, was her eleventh solo hit recording, and remained on the charts for twenty-one weeks, nine of which were in the number one position.

The song sold more than a million copies, and earned the Top Disc Jockey Record of the Year award from Billboard magazine.

[29] In 1948, Lee joined vocalists Perry Como and Jo Stafford as a host of the NBC Radio musical program The Chesterfield Supper Club.

[33] Lee created a new arrangement for the song, and added lyrics ("Romeo loved Juliet", "Captain Smith and Pocahontas"), which she neglected to copyright.

[34] While Lee was in London for a 1970 engagement at Royal Albert Hall, she invited Paul and Linda McCartney to dinner at The Dorchester.

[35] Lee provided speaking and singing voices for several characters in the Disney movie Lady and the Tramp (1955), playing the human Darling, the dog Peg, and the two Siamese cats, Si and Am.

In 1987, when Lady and the Tramp was released on VHS, Lee sought performance and song royalties on the video sales.

[43] She was cremated and her ashes were buried with a bench-style monument in Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles.

[54] Baseball's Tug McGraw, whose career with both the New York Mets and Philadelphia Phillies ranged from 1965 to 1984, named one of his pitches the Peggy Lee.

[61] Produced by recording artist Richard Barone, the sold-out event included performances by Cy Coleman, Debbie Harry, Nancy Sinatra, Rita Moreno, Marian McPartland, Chris Connor, Petula Clark, Maria Muldaur, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Quincy Jones, Shirley Horn, and others.

In 2004, Barone brought the event to a sold-out Hollywood Bowl,[62] and then to Chicago's Ravinia Festival, with expanded casts including Maureen McGovern, Jack Jones, and Bea Arthur.

The upper floor of the museum, where the Egstrom family once lived, features exhibits that trace Lee's career and her regional and state connection.

[16] On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Lee's birth, May 26, 2020, The Grammy Museum hosted an online panel discussion featuring musicians Billie Eilish, k.d.

For the Disney movie Lady and the Tramp, she co-composed all of the original songs with Burke, and supplied the singing and speaking voices of four characters.

[75] Over the years, her songwriting collaborators included David Barbour, Laurindo Almeida, Harold Arlen, Sonny Burke, Cy Coleman, Duke Ellington, Dave Grusin, Quincy Jones, Francis Lai, Jack Marshall, Johnny Mandel, Marian McPartland, Willard Robison, Lalo Schifrin, and Victor Young.

She was among the first of the "old guard" to recognize this new genre, as seen by her recording music from the Beatles, Randy Newman, Carole King, James Taylor, and other up-and-coming songwriters.

From 1957 until her final disc for the company in 1972, she produced a steady stream of two or three albums per year that usually included standards (often arranged quite differently from the original), her own compositions, and material from young artists.

Many of her compositions have become standards, performed by singers such as Tony Bennett, Nat King Cole, Natalie Cole, Bing Crosby, Doris Day, Ella Fitzgerald, Judy Garland, Diana Krall, Queen Latifah, Barry Manilow, Bette Midler, Janelle Monae, Nina Simone, Regina Spektor, Sarah Vaughan and others.