Summary

TAPE: EF02/0050 IN_TIME: 01:37:43 DURATION: 0:50 SOURCES: AP STILLS RESTRICTIONS: DATELINE: Various, File SHOTLIST: 1. BLACK AND WHITE STILL singer and actress Peggy Lee performs in the film "The Jazz Singer" in September 1953. (AP Photo/Warner) 2. BLACK AND WHITE STILL Peggy Lee rehearses at New York's Waldorf Astoria Empire Room, October 16, 1975, for her new show, "Mirrors." (AP Photo/Suzanne Vlamis) 3. STILL Peggy Lee speaks to reporters in New York, June 22, 1995. Lee was to appear with Mel Torme at Carnegie Hall on June 24, in a concert sponsored by the JVC Jazz Festival. (AP Photo/Marty Leaderhandler) 4. STILL Singer Peggy Lee poses in a hat for a portrait November 9, 1984. (AP Photo) 5. STILL Peggy Lee and the Mike Renzi Quintet perform in New York's Carnegie Hall during the JVC Jazz Festival, June 24, 1995.(AP Photo/Adam Nadel) STORYLINE: Peggy Lee, the singer-composer whose smoky, insinuating voice in such songs as "Is That All There Is?" and "Fever" made her a jazz and pop legend, died Monday. She was 81. Lee died from a heart attack at her Bel Air home, her daughter, Nicki Lee Foster, said. Lee repeatedly battled injury and ill health, including heart trouble, in order to maintain a career that brought her a Grammy, an Oscar nomination and sold-out concert halls across the world. During more than 50 years in show business, which began during a troubled childhood and endured through four broken marriages, she recorded hit songs with the Benny Goodman band, wrote songs for a Disney movie and starred on Broadway in a short-lived autobiographical show, "Peg". Her vocal flexibility and cool, breathy voice brought sultry distinction to big band showstoppers, pop ballads and soulful laments. She was considered in the same league as Billie Holiday, Mildred Bailey, Ella Fitzgerald and Bessie Smith. Her hits touched generations of listeners. Lee's more notable recordings included "Why Don't You Do Right?", "I'm a Woman", "Lover", "Pass Me By", "Where or When", "The Way You Look Tonight", "I'm Gonna Go Fishin"' and "Big Spender". The hit "Is That All There Is?" won her a Grammy for best contemporary female vocal performance in 1969. In 1956, she was cast as a boozy blues singer in "Pete Kelly's Blues" and she was nominated for a supporting actress Oscar. She also appeared opposite Danny Thomas in an update of "The Jazz Singer", but her film career was short-lived. Peggy Lee recorded more than 600 songs and wrote many others, including themes for such movies as "Johnny Guitar" and "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter". Her return to recording in 1988 after a hiatus of more than a decade netted her a Grammy nomination for "Miss Peggy Lee Sings The Blues" in 1989 and another for "The Peggy Lee Songbook: There'll Be Another Spring" in 1991.