{"id":556,"date":"2013-01-17T02:50:02","date_gmt":"2013-01-17T02:50:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peggylee.com\/wp\/?p=556"},"modified":"2021-08-04T10:19:31","modified_gmt":"2021-08-04T14:19:31","slug":"its-no-longer-cold-outside","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.peggylee.com\/its-no-longer-cold-outside\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s No Longer Cold Outside"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Peggy Lee: Always Her Own Weather<\/h4>\n

by Sidney Fields<\/p>\n

If you gathered all the stars and put them at the feet of Peggy Lee, she\u2019d still be the kid from Fargo, North Dakota. Peggy is the singer with the silken voice who\u2019s just thankful that she\u2019s liked. She\u2019s at the Paramount show now with her husband, Dave Barbour and Jimmy Dorsey. We were talking to her in her dressing room about those early days when there was no sun and Dave yelled out:<\/p>\n

“Peggy, can you come here for a minute?”<\/p>\n

And Peggy was about to wail: “Not right now,” but it died in her throat and she bounced up and hurried to him, and then rushed back with excuses for her bad manners.<\/p>\n

Peggy met Dave when they were both with Benny Goodman, and they\u2019ve been married seven years. It\u2019s the kind of marriage you read about in storybooks, but rarely see. Their daughter Nicki is five, and after Nicki was born Peggy was told she couldn\u2019t have more kids.<\/p>\n

“So we made all the plans to adopt one \u2013 until I found out I could have more and we\u2019re going to.”<\/p>\n

Dave leads a quintet that accompanies Peggy and he\u2019s a pretty good painter, too, and taught Peggy how to paint and they write songs together. Last year they were on the Chesterfield Supper Club together and they\u2019ll have their own radio show again this fall.<\/p>\n

“And in between I\u2019ll do a minimum of 15 shows with Bing Crosby and probably as many more if they can be arranged.”<\/p>\n

But don\u2019t get the idea that Peggy\u2019s life was always fairyland and prince charming and stuff like that…<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s cold outside, ” Peggy says. “I know. I was outside for a long time. There was practically no sun for the first twenty years of my life.”<\/p>\n

And there were a few very black hours after that too. But none of them left any rough or hard edges on Peggy. Her real name is Norma Egstrom and she\u2019s the seventh in a family of eight and was born in Jamestown, North Dakota, but the family moved to Fargo. Her father was a hard-working railroad man and Peggy was brought up on a train. Her father was six foot three; her mother just five feet. The mother died when Peggy was four.<\/p>\n

“And for a whole year before she died she knew she was going and sewed us a lot of clothes so we\u2019d be dressed for a long time.”<\/p>\n

Peggy was just a gawky kid when she got a job on the Fargo radio station, singing, addressing envelopes, wrapping prizes for soap opera contestants. She pawned her graduation wrist watch for $20, got a free railroad ticket from her father, and hit Hollywood, where she earned $2 a night singing in a nightclub. But that was short-lived because Hollywood was then in a groaning and moaning period and Peggy went back to Fargo and addressing envelopes\u2026<\/p>\n

“But not for long. I talked myself into a broadcast from the local hotel and then moved on to Minneapolis and Chicago, where Benny Goodman heard me.”<\/p>\n

And signed her and that was the beginning of her climb to the stars. But she left all the glittering success as soon as she knew she was going to have a baby, and settle down to being a housewife in Westwood Village, California in a house Peggy says: “It\u2019s so beautiful it just reaches for you.”<\/p>\n

But her manager, Carlos Gastel, saw two songs she and Dave had written, “You Was Right, Baby,” and “What More Can a Woman Do?” and he showed them to Johnny Mercer and Gastel and Mercer persuaded Peggy to record them. They were big hits. Then Johnny wrote special lyrics for “Ma\u00f1ana” and Peggy recorded it with him and it soared to the million mark. So she\u2019s back singing and writing songs with Dave\u2026<\/p>\n

“But we don\u2019t consider ourselves songwriters,” she cautioned.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the way she is, knowing her own weather all the time. And knowing about others too. For instance, she hasn\u2019t had a contract with Gastel since he\u2019s managed her. “We don\u2019t want one,” she says, “and we don\u2019t need one.”<\/p>\n

Not long ago Dave almost died. He had bad ulcers and the doctors cut away most of his stomach and during the crisis he had acute nephritis and convulsions and was blind for three days.<\/p>\n

“I\u2019d say he was sick,” Peggy grins. “But he\u2019s fine now and the best and is a terrific conductor.”<\/p>\n

Says she: “I started singing at 14 and have been at it for 15 years. But I feel younger now than I did three years ago. Listen, my mind or yours, or anybody\u2019s doesn\u2019t grow any gray hairs \u2013 unless we want it to.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Peggy Lee: Always Her Own Weather by Sidney Fields If you gathered all the stars and put them at the feet of Peggy Lee, she\u2019d still be the kid from Fargo, North Dakota. Peggy is the singer with the silken voice who\u2019s just thankful that she\u2019s liked. She\u2019s at the[…]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-library"],"yoast_head":"\nIt's No Longer Cold Outside - Peggy Lee<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.peggylee.com\/its-no-longer-cold-outside\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"It's No Longer Cold Outside - Peggy Lee\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Peggy Lee: Always Her Own Weather by Sidney Fields If you gathered all the stars and put them at the feet of Peggy Lee, she\u2019d still be the kid from Fargo, North Dakota. 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