Videos: Peggy Lee in Action

Yesterday I didn't get done nearly as much as I needed to and it's Peggy Lee's fault. I watched one of her YouTube videos, and then one thing led to the next and today I have to work twice as hard. The good news for you is that my distraction resulted in today's post. Enjoy these clips of the powdery, irrepressibly upbeat, fiercely savvy and shrewdly swinging Miss Peggy Lee:

Here's Lee in 1950 with then husband, guitarist Dave Barbour...

Here's Lee in 1954 singing For You...

Here's Lee in the late 1950s singing Misty. Watch how Lee worked her eyes, from left to right and back, a clever animating performing style...

Here's Lee in 1959 in a spectacular clip that went missing from YouTube for years but popped back in 2020. The pianists from top to bottom are Paul Smith, George Shearing and Joe Bushkin. Stop and think how many A-list pros are on the screen at once...

Here's Lee again in 1959, this time on the Dinah Shore Show, singing a duet with Shore, who also was a master at making singing live on TV look easy...

Here's a nifty duet with Lee and Judy Garland on Garland's early 1960s TV show...

Here's Lee in 1962 singing The Best Is Yet to Come. So strange how dancers behind singers were a thing on TV variety shows in the late 1950s and early '60s, and then they weren't. Watch Lee's hands here. Like Joe Stafford, her right hand was held almost like the phonograph needle on a record...

Here's Lee in 1965. Watch as she slips into ballad character at the start of the song. And so great the camera is up close so we can see all of her facial features in action...

Here's Lee in 1966 singing So What's New?, with Artie Kane on organ...

And here's Lee in 1966 singing The Shining Sea, with words by Lee and music by Johnny Mandel...

Bonus: Here's a duet with Lee and Steve Lawrence in 1962. Eydie Gormé must have been down with a cold and Lee graciously pitched in on The Ed Sullivan Show. It's one of the rare instances where you can see a pro blow a lyric but recover instantly. At 1:25, Lawrence is about to mistakenly sing "made for a boy and girl," when the written lyric is "made for a girl and boy." Since he was following Lee's lead, he caught himself and both moved on without a blink of an eye. Most probably an auto-pilot goof from his stage act with Gormé when he sang lead on the song...

For more on what made Peggy Lee tick, read James Gavin's biography Is That All There Is? The Strange Life of Peggy Lee here.