Peggy Lee

Biography

Norma Deloris Egstrom (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. From her beginning as a vocalist on local radio to singing with Benny Goodman's big band, Lee created a sophisticated persona, writing music for films, acting, and recording conceptual record albums combining poetry and music.
Her best known hits were recorded during her time at Capitol Records, including "Why Don't You Do Right×Why Don't You Do Right1994 · Album · CompilationSpotify (search)YouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 12 tracks1Elmer’s Tune2:532My Old Flame3:103How Deep Is the Ocean?3:234That's the Way It Goes3:135I Threw a Kiss in the Ocean3:026We’ll Meet Again3:207Full Moon (Noche la Luna)2:138All I Need Is You3:259Why Don’t You Do Right3:1510Not a Care in the World3:2411How Long Has This Been Going On?3:1812That Did It2:30?" (1943), "Fever×Fever1958 · EPSpotify (search)YouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 4 tracksA1FeverA2You Don’t KnowB1Listen to the Rockin' BirdB2Baby, Baby, Wait for Me" (1958), and "Is That All There Is?×Is That All There Is?1969 · Studio albumSpotify (search)YouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 10 tracks1Is That All There Is?4:222Love Story3:323Me and My Shadow3:084My Old Flame4:305I’m a Woman2:106Brother Love’s Travelling Salvation Show3:087Something3:128Whistle for Happiness2:139Johnny (Linda)2:4710Don't Smoke in Bed3:12" (1969). The latter two songs earned her Grammy Awards. Towards her later recordings, Lee switched to complete vocal jazz with albums like Miss Peggy Lee×Miss Peggy Lee21 April 1998 · Album · CompilationSpotify (search)YouTube Music (search) Sings the Blues (1988).
Lee recorded more than 1,100 masters and co-wrote more than 270 songs. She is best known for her role in the Walt Disney classic Lady and the Tramp, where she voiced Darling, Peg, and the Siamese cats, among others. In 1956, she received an Academy Award nomination for her role in the 1955 film Pete Kelly's Blues. That same year, Lee was also nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award.

Early life

Lee was born Norma Deloris Egstrom in Jamestown, North Dakota, United States, on May 26, 1920, the seventh of the eight children of Selma Emele (née Anderson) Egstrom and Marvin Olaf Egstrom, a station agent for the Midland Continental Railroad. Her family were Lutherans. Her father was Swedish-American and her mother was Norwegian-American. After her mother died when Lee was four, her father married Minnie Schaumberg Wiese. His family's original name was Ekström.
Lee and her family lived in several towns along the Midland Continental Railroad (Jamestown, Nortonville, and Wimbledon). She graduated from Wimbledon High School in 1937.
Lee began singing at a young age. In Wimbledon, she was the female singer for a six-piece college dance band with leader Lyle "Doc" Haines. She traveled to various locations with Haines's quintet on Fridays after school and on weekends. Lee first sang professionally on KOVC radio in Valley City, North Dakota, in 1936. She later had her own 15-minute Saturday radio show sponsored by a local restaurant that paid her salary in food. Both during and after her high-school years, Lee sang for small sums on local radio stations.
In October 1937, radio personality Ken Kennedy, of North Dakota's most widely heard station, WDAY in Fargo, auditioned her and put her on the air that day, but not before he changed her name to Peggy Lee.
In March 1938, at age 17, Lee left home for Hollywood, California. Her first job was seasonal work on Balboa Island, Newport Beach, as a short-order cook and waitress at Harry's Cafe. When the job ended after Easter, she was hired as a carnival barker at the Balboa Fun Zone. She wrote about this experience in the song "The Nickel Ride", which she composed with Dave Grusin for the 1974 film of the same name.
Later in 1938, Lee returned to Hollywood to audition for the MC at The Jade. Her employment was cut short when she fainted onstage due to overwork and malnutrition. After she was taken to the Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center she was told she needed a tonsillectomy. Lee returned to North Dakota for the operation.
In 1939, Lee was hired to perform regularly at The Powers Hotel in Fargo, and toured with both the Sev Olson and the Will Osborne Orchestras. She was also again broadcasting at WDAY.
When Lee returned to California in 1940, she took a job singing at The Doll House in Palm Springs. There, she developed her trademark sultry purr, having decided to compete with the noisy crowd with subtlety rather than volume.

I knew I couldn't sing over them, so I decided to sing under them. The more noise they made, the more softly I sang. When they discovered they couldn't hear me, they began to look at me. Then, they began to listen. As I sang, I kept thinking, "softly with feeling". The noise dropped to a hum; the hum gave way to silence. I had learned how to reach and hold my audience—softly, with feeling.
While performing at The Doll House, Lee met Frank Bering, the owner of the Ambassador East and West in Chicago. He offered her a gig at the Buttery Room, a nightclub in the Ambassador Hotel West. There, she was noticed by bandleader Benny Goodman. According to Lee:

Benny's then-fiancée, Lady Alice Duckworth, came into the Buttery, and she was very impressed. So the next evening, she brought Benny in, because they were looking for a replacement for Helen Forrest. And although I didn't know, I was it. He was looking at me strangely, I thought, but it was just his preoccupied way of looking. I thought that he didn't like me at first, but it just was that he was preoccupied with what he was hearing.

1940–1951: Recordings with Benny Goodman and the early Capitol years

She joined Goodman's band in August 1941 and made her first recording, singing "Elmer's Tune". Lee stayed with the Benny Goodman Orchestra for two years.
On November 13, 1941, Lee recorded four songs: "Somebody Else Is Taking My Place", "Somebody Nobody Knows", "They Did It, Marie", and "How Long Has This Been Going On?." "Somebody Else Is Taking My Place" was soon released as a single and in 1942, Lee had her first top ten hit with it, followed in 1943 by "Why Don't You Do Right×Why Don't You Do Right1994 · Album · CompilationSpotify (search)YouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 12 tracks1Elmer’s Tune2:532My Old Flame3:103How Deep Is the Ocean?3:234That's the Way It Goes3:135I Threw a Kiss in the Ocean3:026We’ll Meet Again3:207Full Moon (Noche la Luna)2:138All I Need Is You3:259Why Don’t You Do Right3:1510Not a Care in the World3:2411How Long Has This Been Going On?3:1812That Did It2:30?", which sold more than one million copies and made her famous. She sang with Goodman's orchestra in two 1943 films, Stage Door Canteen and The Powers Girl.
In March 1943, Lee married Dave Barbour, a guitarist in Goodman's band. Lee said:

David joined Benny's band and there was a ruling that no one should fraternize with the girl singer. But I fell in love with David the first time I heard him play, and so I married him. Benny then fired David, so I quit, too. Benny and I made up, although David didn't play with him anymore. Benny stuck to his rule. I think that's not too bad a rule, but you can't help falling in love with somebody.
Will Friedwald has written:

when she left the band that spring [1943], her intention was to quit the footlights altogether and become Mrs. Barbour, fulltime housewife. It's to Mr. Barbour's credit that he refused to let his wife's singing and composing talent lie dormant for too long. "I fell in love with David Barbour," she recalled. "But 'Why Don't You Do Right' was such a giant hit that I kept getting offers and kept turning them down. And at that time it was a lot of money, but it really didn't matter to me at all. I was very happy. All I wanted was to have a family and cling to the children [daughter Nicki]. Well, they kept talking to me and finally David joined them and said 'You really have too much talent to stay at home and someday you might regret it.'"
In 1944, Lee drifted back to songwriting and occasional recording sessions for Capitol Records, for which she recorded a long string of hits, many of them with lyrics and music by Lee and Barbour, including "I Don't Know Enough About You" and "It's a Good Day×It's A Good Day29 April 2012 · SingleSpotify (search)YouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 1 track1It's A Good Day2:50". Her recording of "Golden Earrings", the title song of a 1947 movie, was a hit throughout 1947–48. "Mañana×Mañana2007 · Album · CompilationSpotify (search)YouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 40 tracks · 2 discsDisc 11Mañana (Is Soon Enough for Me)2:542Golden Earrings2:573Johnny Guitar3:024Riders in the Sky (A Cowboy Legend)2:435The Old Master Painter2:506Bali Ha’i3:117I Can’t Give You Anything but Love2:358There’ll Be Some Changes Made3:109Lover Come Back to Me2:5110I’m Confessin’2:3911(When I Dance With You) I Get Ideas2:1212September in the Rain3:1013Nice Work If You Can Get It2:2114Don’t Blame Me2:4815Baby Won’t You Please Come Home1:5416Autumn in Rome2:4017Let Me Go Lover2:3918Sugar2:3919Me2:3120Bye Bye Blackbird3:40Disc 21Lover3:202Baubles, Bangles and Beads3:153Mr. Wonderful3:214He’s a Tramp2:405The Siamese Cat Song1:576I Don’t Want to Play in Your Yard2:337The Gypsy With Fire in His Shoes2:538Lover, You Didn’t Do Right by Me3:029Sisters2:2810Black Coffee3:0911Just One of Those Things2:5912I’ve Got You Under My Skin2:3213They Can’t Take That Away From Me2:5814I Didn’t Know What Time It Was2:1615Love Me or Leave Me2:0716My Heart Belongs to Daddy2:1017Somebody Loves Me3:3218(What Can I Say) After I Say I’m Sorry?2:1419You Go to My Head3:1720Sing a Rainbow2:45", by Lee and Barbour, was her eleventh solo hit recording, and remained on the charts for 21 weeks, including nine at the top position. The song sold more than a million copies, and earned the Top Disc Jockey Record of the Year award from Billboard magazine. From 1946 to 1949, Lee also recorded for Capitol's library of electrical transcriptions for radio stations. An advertisement for Capitol Transcriptions in a trade magazine noted that the transcriptions included "special voice introductions by Peggy".
In 1948, Lee joined vocalists Perry Como and Jo Stafford as a host of the NBC Radio musical program The Chesterfield Supper Club. She was a regular on The Jimmy Durante Show and appeared frequently on Bing Crosby's radio shows during the late 1940s and early 1950s.

1952–1957: Time at Decca

Her relationship with Capitol spanned almost three decades, aside from a brief detour (1952–1957) at Decca. Decca signed Lee in early 1952. The single "Be Anything (but Be Mine)" was released in mid-spring 1952 arranged by Gordon Jenkins. The San Francisco Chronicle asssesed it as a "very good" starter single for Decca. In May 1952, the song made the charts and peaked at No. 21.
The following single was "Lover" written by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart for the 1932 film Love Me Tonight. Lee's version was used in the film The Jazz Singer. Released in late May 1952, it sold over 250,00 copies in just the first few weeks and peaked at No. 3 on the pop charts, becoming her biggest Decca hit. For a single in the summer, Decca partnered up Lee and Bing Crosby to record "Watermelon Weather". The song became a hit in America, as well as Australia where it hit No. 15. She would appear on Crosby's radio show two times in June 1952, singing duets, including "Watermelon Weather". Two other singles followed, both making the US pop charts: "Just One of Those Things" and "River River". Lee would be absent from the pop charts from there on until "Baubles, Bangles, & Beads" in late 1953, which hit the US top-30 and Australian top-10. Later, "Mister Wonderful" also hit the charts. It was her first UK pop chart entry as well, peaking at No. 5.
In April-May 1953, she recorded Black Coffee, regarded as a concept album. The album missed the charts upon its release, but charted in the UK almost 10 years later at No. 20 after a rerelease in the country. It also made a short chart appearance in 2021 on the US Billboard Jazz Albums at No. 24. Joni Mitchell declared the album one of her favorites. Later that year, Decca released their first Peggy Lee compilation titled Songs in an Intimate Style×Songs in an Intimate Style1954 · Studio albumSpotifyYouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 8 tracks · 2 discsDisc 1A1Baubles, Bangles and BeadsA2That’s Him Over ThereB1The TavernB2Apples, Peaches and CherriesDisc 2C1That’s What a Woman Is ForC2Where Can I Go Without YouD1How StrangeD2Love You So. In 1954 and 1955, Lee recorded albums with other popular singers of the time. Notably, she substituted for Rosemary Clooney on Selections from Irving Berlin's White Christmas. The album almost topped the charts in 1954, peaking at No. 2. Songs from Pete Kelly's Blues (with Ella Fitzgerald) managed to reach No. 7 on the Billboard pop charts the following year. In 1955, during Lady and the Tramp's release, a film which starred her, Lee's recordings for "He's A Tramp" and "The Siamese Cat Song" were released as a single by Decca Records. In 1956, "Joey, Joey, Joey" was Lee's final Decca single to make the charts at No. 76.
In 1957, Lee's final album for Decca was released and titled Dream Street×Dream Street1957 · Studio albumSpotify (search)YouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 12 tracksA1Street of Dreams3:23A2What’s New?3:00A3You’re Blasé2:50A4It’s All Right With Me2:24A5My Old Flame2:39A6Dancing on the Ceiling3:41B1It Never Entered My Mind3:02B2Too Late Now3:49B3I’ve Grown Accustomed to His Face2:47B4Something I Dreamed Last Night2:30B5Last Night When We Were Young2:57B6So Blue2:14, also regarded as a concept album. Music critic Jason Ankeny believed it contained "the first truly adult music of her career." Her contract expired in February 1957. Though she started recording for Capitol by then again, Lee's final Decca single came in 1958 with "Johnny Guitar".

1957–1973: Second Capitol phase

In 1958, she recorded her own version of "Fever×Fever1958 · EPSpotify (search)YouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 4 tracksA1FeverA2You Don’t KnowB1Listen to the Rockin' BirdB2Baby, Baby, Wait for Me" by Little Willie John, written by Eddie Cooley and Otis Blackwell. Lee created a new arrangement for the song, and added lyrics ("Romeo loved Juliet", "Captain Smith and Pocahontas"), which she neglected to copyright. Her version of "Fever" was a hit and was nominated in three categories at the 1st Annual Grammy Awards in 1959, including Record of the Year and Song of the Year.

In 1969, she teamed up with Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller for "Is That All There Is?×Is That All There Is?1969 · Studio albumSpotify (search)YouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 10 tracks1Is That All There Is?4:222Love Story3:323Me and My Shadow3:084My Old Flame4:305I’m a Woman2:106Brother Love’s Travelling Salvation Show3:087Something3:128Whistle for Happiness2:139Johnny (Linda)2:4710Don't Smoke in Bed3:12". Produced and written by them, Lee's performance of the song won her the Grammy for Best Contemporary Vocal Performance. An album was soon assembled with the same name. Two singles were lifted from it, "Whistle for Happiness," which was her final Canadian singles chart appearance, and "Love Story," written by Randy Newman, which became her final pop hit.
Lee tried to return to the pop charts with a similar song to "Is That All There Is?" with "Where Did They Go×Where Did They Go1971 · Studio albumSpotify (search)YouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 10 tracksA1Where Did They GoA2My Rock and FoundationA3Help Me Make It Through the NightA4All I WantA5I Don’t Know How to Love HimB1Goodbye AgainB2SingB3I Was Born in Love With YouB4Losing My MindB5My Sweet Lord", but the effort failed; it was her first single after the aforementioned hit to miss any chart. But an eponymous album did follow, released in mid 1971, it contained cover versions of pop hits by other artists.

1974–2000: Later recordings and genre shift

While Lee was in London for a 1970 engagement at Royal Albert Hall, she invited Paul and Linda McCartney to dinner at The Dorchester. At the dinner, the couple gave Lee a song they had written, "Let's Love". In July 1974, with Paul McCartney producing, Lee recorded the song at the Record Plant in Los Angeles, and it became the title track of her 40th album, her only one on Atlantic Records.
Lee continued to record for different labels in the 1970s, Mirrors for A&M in 1975, Peggy for Polydor in 1977, and Close Enough for Love in 1979 for DRG.
She returned in the 1980s to record vocal jazz albums such as Miss Peggy Lee×Miss Peggy Lee21 April 1998 · Album · CompilationSpotify (search)YouTube Music (search) Sings the Blues and Love Held Lightly: Rare Songs by Harold Arlen×Love Held Lightly: Rare Songs by Harold Arlen16 February 1993 · Studio albumSpotify (search)YouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 14 tracks1Look Who’s Been Dreaming2:402Love Held Lightly4:193Buds Won’t Bud3:304Can You Explain3:405Wait’ll It Happens to You2:316Come On, Midnight4:397Happy With the Blues4:258Bad for Each Other3:279Love’s No Stranger to Me2:5010I Could Be Good for You2:4011Got to Wear You Off My Weary Mind4:1412I Had a Love Once2:4413Love’s a Necessary Thing3:3814My Shining Hour2:35.

Acting career

Lee starred opposite Danny Thomas in The Jazz Singer (1952), a remake of the Al Jolson film, The Jazz Singer (1927). She played an alcoholic blues singer in Pete Kelly's Blues (1955), for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
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. She also co-wrote, with Sonny Burke, all of the original songs for the film, including "He's A Tramp", "Bella Notte", "La La Lu", "The Siamese Cat Song", and "Peace on Earth". In 1987, when Lady and the Tramp was released on VHS, Lee sought performance and song royalties on the video sales. When the Disney company refused to pay, she filed a lawsuit in 1988. After a prolonged legal battle, in 1992, Lee was awarded $2.3 million for breach of contract, plus $500,000 for unjust enrichment, $600,000 for illegal use of Lee's voice and $400,000 for the use of her name.
Peggy Lee also wrote the lyrics for "Johnny Guitar" (with music composer Victor Young), the title track of the 1954 film, Johnny Guitar, which she sings partially at the end of the movie.
During her career, Lee appeared in hundreds of variety shows, and several TV movies and specials.

Songwriting

Lee wrote or co-wrote more than 270 songs. In addition to her own material to sing, she was hired to score and compose songs for movies. 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.
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.
Lee's first published song was in 1941, "Little Fool". "What More Can a Woman Do?" was recorded by Sarah Vaughan with Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker. "Mañana (Is Soon Enough for Me)" was number one on the Billboard singles chart for nine weeks in 1948, from the week of March 13 to May.
Lee was a mainstay of Capitol Records when rock and roll came onto the American music scene. 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, Lee 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.

Personal life

Lee was married four times: to guitarist and composer Dave Barbour (1943–1951), actor Brad Dexter (1953–1954), actor Dewey Martin (1956–1958), and percussionist Jack Del Rio (1964). All the marriages ended in divorce.
On November 11, 1943, Lee gave birth to her only child, daughter Nicki Lee Foster (who died in 2014), in her marriage to Barbour.
Lee learned Transcendental Meditation and said she was taught "by the Maharishi personally and that was a great honor."

Lawsuit

In 1987, Peggy Lee was asked to help promote the first VHS release of Lady and the Tramp, for which she was paid an honorarium of $500. Lee contended Disney had breached the 1952 contract she had signed with the studio, which denied Disney the right to make "transcriptions for sale to the public" without her approval. Disney CEO Michael Eisner refused to pay Lee her share of the royalties. On November 16, 1988, Lee sued the Walt Disney Company for breach of contract, claiming that she retained the rights to transcriptions of the music, arguing that videotape editions were transcriptions. Her lawyers demanded $50 million in damages for compensation. In March 1991, Lee was awarded $2.3 million for breach of contract, plus $500,000 for unjust enrichment, $600,000 for illegal use of Lee's voice and $400,000 for the use of her name. From the $72 million Disney had earned in videocassette sales, by 1995, Lee's award was estimated to be four percent of the sales.
In October 1992, the California Court of Appeals upheld the judgement that Disney had to pay Lee over $3 million in compensation. Though videocassettes did not exist when Lee signed her contract with Disney, she nevertheless had retained the rights to phonograph recordings and transcriptions of the film. Stephen Lachs, a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge, later ruled that videocassettes were considered under the category of transcriptions. In December 1992, the California Supreme Court denied a hearing on Disney's appeal of lower-court rulings, which upheld the studio had committed breach of contract.

Illness and death

Lee continued to perform into the 1990s, sometimes using a wheelchair. After years of poor health, she died of complications from diabetes and a heart attack on January 21, 2002, at the age of 81. Lee was cremated and her ashes were buried with a bench-style monument in Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles.

Legacy

Lee is often cited as the inspiration for the Margarita cocktail. In 1948, after a trip to Mexico, she and her husband ventured into the Balinese Room in Galveston, Texas. She requested a drink similar to one she had had in Mexico, and the head bartender, Santos Cruz, created the Margarita, and named it after the Spanish version of Peggy×Peggy1977 · Studio albumSpotify (search)YouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 12 tracksA1Hungry YearsA2Here NowA3I Go to RioA4I’m Not in LoveA5Star SoundsA6What I Did for LoveB1MistyB2Every Little MovementB3Courage, MadameB4Switchin’ ChannelsB5Just for TonightB6Lover's name.
Lee was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Recording in 1960. The star is at 6319 Hollywood Boulevard.
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. He explained to The Philadelphia Inquirer: "That's the one where the hitter is out in front of it and says, 'Is that all there is?×Is That All There Is?1969 · Studio albumSpotify (search)YouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 10 tracks1Is That All There Is?4:222Love Story3:323Me and My Shadow3:084My Old Flame4:305I’m a Woman2:106Brother Love’s Travelling Salvation Show3:087Something3:128Whistle for Happiness2:139Johnny (Linda)2:4710Don't Smoke in Bed3:12'"
In 1971, Lee sang the Lord's Prayer at the funeral of Louis Armstrong.
In 1972, journalist Linda Deutsch described Lee as "the Queen" of pop music.
The designer of the Miss Piggy Muppet, Bonnie Erickson, who grew up in Lee's home state of North Dakota, was inspired by Lee for the Miss Piggy character in 1974. Originally called Miss Piggy Lee, her name was shortened to Miss Piggy when the Muppet gained fame.
In 1975, Lee received an honorary doctorate in music from North Dakota State University, and in 2000, she received another from Jamestown University.
In 1983, Lee had a hybrid tea rose named in her honor that was pink with a touch of peach. The Peggy Lee Rose was the 1983 American Beauty Rose of the Year.
In 2003, "There'll Be Another Spring: A Tribute to Miss Peggy Lee" was held at Carnegie Hall. 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, and then to Chicago's Ravinia Festival, with expanded casts including Maureen McGovern, Jack Jones, and Bea Arthur. The Carnegie Hall concert was broadcast on NPR's JazzSet.
The Wimbledon depot building, where she and her family lived and worked, became the Midland Continental Depot Transportation Museum, featuring The Peggy Lee Exhibit, in 2012. 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.
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. lang, Eric Burton (The Black Pumas), as well as Lee's granddaughter, Holly Foster Wells, and the author of Peggy Lee: A Century of Song, Tish Oney.
Lee has been noted as an influence on artists such as Paul McCartney, Madonna, Beyoncé, k.d. lang, Elvis Costello, Diana Krall, Dusty Springfield, Rita Coolidge, Rita Moreno, and Billie Eilish.
In 2020, the ASCAP Foundation, along with Lee's family, established the annual Peggy Lee Songwriter Award. The inaugural award went to Michael Blum and Jenna Lotti for their song "Fake ID".