Peggy King

Peggy King was born on February 16, 1930, in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, to Floyd Henry King and Mary Margaret Finan. Adopted as an infant during the Great Depression, she discovered music almost before she discovered anything else. Her mother would later say, "I don't remember when you weren't singing" — and those words would follow Peggy her entire life as the truest description of who she was. After the family moved to Ravenna, Ohio in 1942, Peggy attended Ravenna High School and launched her professional career at age 18, performing on radio by day and at the Cleveland Hotel nightclub by night. She honed her craft touring with the big bands of Charlie Spivak, Ralph Flanagan, and Ray Anthony — absorbing phrasing and stage presence from the great male vocalists of the era without ever taking formal voice lessons. What she had instead was something rarer: natural musicality, total recall for lyrics, and an unshakeable ease in front of an audience. Television found her early. Appearing on The Mel Tormé Show in 1952, she was recommended to MGM Records by Bing Crosby himself, and soon signed to Columbia Records after a jingle for Hunt's Tomato Sauce caught the ear of executive Mitch Miller. Her breakthrough came in 1954 when she joined The George Gobel Show on NBC, where she became a beloved regular for three seasons. The show's writers dubbed her "Pretty Perky Peggy King" — a nickname that stuck for the rest of her career. She was nominated for an Emmy Award for Best Female Singer in 1955, performed the Oscar-nominated "Count Your Blessings (Instead of Sheep)" at the Academy Awards telecast that same year, and was named Best New Singer of 1955–56 by both Billboard and Down Beat magazines. On February 8, 1960, she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame among the first entertainers ever honored there. The 1960s brought her deepest joys — marriage to Samuel Rudofker and the births of her children, Jonathan and Suzy — but also the grief that would define her later decades. The death of her son Jonathan in 2000 plunged Peggy into a long, painful silence. "I couldn't even walk, let alone sing," she said. "Not even in the shower, or hum a tune around the house." For nearly thirty years she stepped away from performing entirely. Then, gently, music called her back. Through therapy and the love of her daughter Suzy, she came to understand, as she put it, that "music was the answer." In 2013, at the age of 83, she returned to the stage with the All-Star Jazz Trio, earning enthusiastic reviews at 54 Below in New York and the Metropolitan Room. In 2016 she released Songs a la King, her first new album in 36 years. Peggy King died on October 25, 2026, from complications of Alzheimer's disease, at Saunders House Assisted Living in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania. She was 96. She is survived by her daughter Suzy Rudofker and son-in-law Dwain Goforth. She preferred to be remembered as "an actress who sings" — and she was one of the finest the Golden Age of television ever produced.