Norma Deloris Egstrom (May 26, 1920 – January 21, 2002), known professionally as Peggy Lee, was an American jazz and popular music singer, songwriter, composer, and actress, over a career spanning 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. Called the "Queen of American pop music," Lee recorded over 1,100 masters and composed over 270 songs. 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. 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. 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. Lee began singing from a young age. In Wimbledon, Lee was the female singer for a six-piece college dance band with leader Lyle "Doc" Haines. She traveled to various locations with Haines' quintet on Fridays after school and on weekends. Lee first sang professionally over 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 WDAY in Fargo, (the most widely heard station in North Dakota), auditioned Egstrom and put her on the air that day, but not before he changed her name to Peggy Lee. Lee left home and traveled to Hollywood, California, at the age of 17 in March 1938. 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