Jaye P. Morgan
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Jaye P. Morgan (born Mary Margaret Morgan, December 3, 1931) is a retired popular American singer and game show panelist.
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[edit] Early life
Morgan was born in Mancos, Colorado, but her family moved to California by the time she was in high school. In the late 1940s, at Verdugo Hills High School in Tujunga, Los Angeles, California, she served as class treasurer (and got the nickname "Jaye P." after the banker J. P. Morgan) and sang at school assemblies, accompanied by her brother on guitar.
[edit] 1950s
In 1951, a year after graduation from Verdugo Hills, she made a recording of the song "Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries" which made it to the Top Ten. Soon after, she received an RCA Victor recording contract and she had five hits in one year, including "That's All I Want from You," her biggest hit, which reached #3 on the charts. Other notable hits included "The Longest Walk" and "Pepper Hot Baby".
From 1954 to 1955, she was a vocalist on the television show "Stop the Music." In 1956 she had her own television show, named for her, and guested on a number of other variety shows as well. She was a charter member of the Robert Q. Lewis "gang" on Lewis's popular weekday show on CBS, and was featured on a special episode of The Jackie Gleason Show in which Lewis's entire company substituted for the vacationing Gleason.
[edit] 1960s and '70s
After a period in the 1960s when she did very little in the entertainment field, confining herself to a small number of night club appearances, she returned to the public eye in the 1970s, mainly as an actress. She played herself on a 1973 episode (The Songwriter) of the sitcom The Odd Couple.
Morgan also guest starred on The Muppet Show (episode 218) in which she and Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem sang "That Old Black Magic."
[edit] Game Show Panelist
In the 1970s when she was a panelist on the game/variety shows The Gong Show and Rhyme and Reason and in the 1980 "behind-the-scenes" movie version of The Gong Show. She was also right at home on the Playboy Channel game show Everything Goes.
[edit] The "Gong Show"
A clip of her exposing herself was saved, and later used in The Gong Show Movie, though it was NOT the only instance of Morgan baring her breasts on the show: in the tapes to other episodes (including an episode aired on GSN in 2007), she can be seen unbuttoning her blouse while Gene-Gene The Dancing Machine" comes onstage, then a quick camera cut, and a cut back to Morgan buttoning up again and returning to her seat. It is a different clip because she is wearing different clothes.[citation needed] She can also be seen unbuttoning her blouse during a sketch of a guest singing "How lovely to be a woman." In Barris' first autobiography, he mentioned this incident where Morgan bared her breasts to this act that wasn't Gene-Gene.[1]
[edit] Recordings
- "Are You Lonesome Tonight" (better-known hit for Elvis Presley) (backed with "Miss You") (1959)
- "Chee Chee Oo Chee" (backed with "Two Lost Souls", duet with Perry Como) (1955)
- "Danger, Heartbreak Ahead" (1955)
- "Get Up, Get Up (You Sleepyhead)" (1956)
- "If You Don't Want My Love" (1955)
- "I Walk the Line" (1960)
- "Johnny Casanova" (1956)
- "Just Love Me" (1956)
- "Longest Walk" (1955)
- "Lost In The Shuffle" (1956)
- "Miss You" (backed with "Are You Lonesome Tonight") (1959)
- "Mutual Admiration Society" (duet with Eddy Arnold) (1956)
- "Not One Goodbye" (1955)
- "Pepperhot Baby" (Also a hit for Gisele MacKenzie) 1955)
- "Play For Keeps" (1956)
- "Sweet Lips" (1956)
- "That's All I Want From You" (1954)
- "Two Lost Souls" (backed with "Chee Chee Oo Chee", duet with Perry Como) (1955)
[edit] References
- ^ Jaye P. Morgan. The Gong Show (clip) [Television Production]. Chuck Barris.
[edit] External links
- Jaye P. Morgan on the Internet Movie Database
- Biography on her high school alumni site
- Discography
- Biography on the MSN site
- Filmography on the MSN site
- Muppet Wiki info
- All Music Guide
