Peggy King, 'Pretty Perky' singer of 'The George Gobel Show',dies at 96

Peggy King, the 1950s television and recording star known as “Pretty Perky Peggy King”, has died at 96. 

King died on Sunday, 25 October, after a battle with Alzheimer’s disease, at the Saunders House assisted living facility in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania. 

Her publicist, Alan Eicher, confirmed her death.

King was a regular on The George Gobel Show from 1954 to 1957, when it was one of NBC’s top variety programmes. 

Gobel gave her the nickname, which stayed with her for the rest of her career. 

She was nominated for an Emmy for best female singer in 1955, performed Count Your Blessings (Instead of Sheep) at the 1955 Academy Awards, and co-hosted the Emmys in 1958. 

She was named best new singer of 1956 by DownBeat and Billboard, received one of the first stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960, and was inducted into the Broadcast Pioneers Hall of Fame in 2010. 

In an interview with Broadcast Pioneers, she recalled landing the Gobel job partly because of her small height.

Born on 16 February 1930 in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, King started on radio in Cleveland and graduated from Ravenna High School in Ohio. 

She signed with MGM in 1952, leading to a singing cameo in Vincente Minnelli’s The Bad and the Beautiful, in which she performed Don’t Blame Me. 

She also appeared in Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy (1955) and as a stewardess in the thriller Zero Hour! (1957).

On television, she starred in the musical Hans Brinker or the Silver Skates with Tab Hunter and a musical version of Jack and the Beanstalk with Joel Grey, Celeste Holm and Cyril Ritchard. 

She was a regular on The Mel Tormé Show and sang a commercial jingle for Hunt’s Tomato Sauce. Her last released recording was the album Songs a la King in 2016.

King is survived by her daughter, Suzy Rudofker, and son-in-law, Dwain Goforth.