A comedian’s throwaway nickname — “Pretty Perky Peggy King” — followed the singer who earned it for the rest of her life, through Columbia Records, Hollywood soundstages and a tomato sauce jingle that became a hit of its own.
Peggy King, the singer and actress who became a weekly fixture of 1950s television variety shows, died Sunday, Oct. 25, 2026, at the Saunders House Assisted Living facility in Wynnewood, Pa., after a battle with Alzheimer’s disease. She was 96. Her publicist, Alan Eicher, confirmed her death.
Her bright voice carried into American living rooms week after week during television’s golden age, and she kept singing for audiences well into her 80s.
The Nickname That Never Let Go
King worked as a regular on “The George Gobel Show” from 1954 to 1957, and the host, humorist George Gobel, dubbed her “Pretty Perky Peggy King.” The billing followed her everywhere she sang afterward.
That exposure made her one of the era’s most visible young vocalists almost overnight. She was nominated for an Emmy Award for best female singer in 1955, sang “Count Your Blessings (Instead of Sheep)” — the song from the 1954 film “White Christmas” — at the 1955 Academy Awards, and co-hosted the Emmy Awards show in 1958.
A Movie Contract at MGM
King signed a talent contract with MGM in 1952, which led to a singing cameo in director Vincente Minnelli’s “The Bad and the Beautiful” and her performance of “Don’t Blame Me” on that soundtrack album. She appeared in the 1955 horror-comedy “Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy” and played a stewardess in the 1957 thriller “Zero Hour!” alongside stars Dana Andrews and Linda Darnell.
Television kept her busier. She sang across the variety circuit all decade — “American Bandstand,” “The Steve Allen Show,” “The Perry Como Show,” “The Jack Benny Program,” “The Garry Moore Show,” “What’s My Line?,” “The Kraft Music Hall with Milton Berle,” Bob Hope’s “Chevy Show” and “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson” — and took dramatic turns on “Maverick” and “Dragnet.”
She starred with actor Tab Hunter in the television musical “Hans Brinker or the Silver Skates” and headlined a TV musical version of “Jack and the Beanstalk” with Joel Grey, Celeste Holm and Cyril Ritchard. She was a regular on “The Mel Tormé Show” for CBS. Her jingle for Hunt’s Tomato Sauce was a hit of its own.
The Song Mitch Miller Buried
Mitch Miller signed King to a long-term contract with Columbia Records, where she made two best-selling albums, “Wish Upon a Star” and “Girl Meets Boy,” along with a string of hit singles. Composer Arthur Hamilton wrote “Cry Me a River” for her, but Miller would not let her record it. She sang it on stage for years anyway.
Billboard named her the best new singer for 1955-56, and DownBeat handed her the same distinction.
From Cleveland Radio to Ravenna High
King was born Feb. 16, 1930, in Greensburg, Pa., to Floyd Henry King and Margaret Finan, and graduated from Ravenna High School in Ohio. She started out singing on radio in Cleveland and worked with the bands of Charlie Spivak, Ray Anthony and Ralph Flanagan before the cameras found her.
She received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Feb. 8, 1960, among the first group of celebrities honored there, and the Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia inducted her into its Hall of Fame in 2010.
King never really stopped working. She performed regularly in the Philadelphia area, New York and Los Angeles as late as 2014, and her last released recording, the album “Songs a la King,” arrived in 2016.
Her daughter, Suzy Rudofker, and son-in-law, Dwain Goforth, survive her.
