Jaye P. Morgan

Jaye P. Morgan, born Mary Margaret Morgan on December 3, 1931, is an American singer, actress, and game show panelist who appeared on Broadway in 1981 in Sugar Babies. She was born in Mancos, in Montezuma County in far southwestern Colorado, and her family relocated to California before she reached high school age. One of seven children, with five brothers and one sister, Morgan attended Verdugo Hills High School in the Tujunga neighborhood of Los Angeles, where she sang at school assemblies accompanied by a brother on guitar and served as class treasurer. Her nickname, Jaye P., was acquired there, drawn from the name of the banker J. P. Morgan. She was briefly married to Michael Baiano between 1954 and 1955.

Morgan's recording career began in 1953 with a Derby Records release of "Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries," which reached number 26 on the U.S. Billboard chart. That success led to a contract with RCA Victor, under which she placed five hits on the charts within a single year. The most successful of these was "That's All I Want from You," which climbed to number 3. Additional charting singles included "There's a Dream in My Heart" by Rolande Maxwell Young, "The Longest Walk," and "Pepper Hot Baby." After six years with RCA Victor, she signed with MGM Records in 1959.

Her television work began in earnest in the mid-1950s. Starting January 11, 1954, she was a featured singer on the Robert Q. Lewis Show on CBS-TV, and from 1954 to 1955 she served as a vocalist on the ABC series Stop the Music. In November 1955, the British music publication NME identified her as the top female vocalist in the U.S. Cash Box poll. She hosted her own program, The Jaye P. Morgan Show, in 1956, and that same year was featured in a special episode of The Jackie Gleason Show in which the Robert Q. Lewis company substituted for the vacationing Gleason. She guest-appeared on ABC's Pat Boone Chevy Showroom in 1958 and on NBC's The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford, on October 6, 1960.

Throughout the 1960s, Morgan took on a series of television acting roles. In 1961, she was cast as Sally Dwight in the CBS anthology series General Electric Theater, hosted by Ronald Reagan, in the episode "Money and the Minister." The following year she played Patty Maxwell in the CBS military sitcom Hennesey and Kitty Flanders in "That's Showbiz" on NBC's The Joey Bishop Show. In 1964, she portrayed Ruth Evans in the NBC medical drama The Eleventh Hour and appeared as Susan Duvall in CBS's My Three Sons, returning to that series in 1966 as the fading singer Claudia Farrell in the episode "A Falling Star." In 1973, she played herself in an episode of The Odd Couple and appeared as Magda Valentine in the film The All-American Boy. She also performed the theme song "Coming into My Own" for the NBC situation comedy Fay, starring Lee Grant, which aired in 1975 and 1976.

In 1978, Morgan guest-starred on The Muppet Show, performing "That Old Black Magic" as a duet with Dr. Teeth. That same year she began a two-year run as a regular panelist on The Gong Show, a role that brought her considerable notoriety when she exposed her breasts on live camera during a Gene, Gene, the Dancing Machine performance, resulting in a ban from the program by NBC. Footage of the incident was included in the 1980 film The Gong Show Movie. She also appeared on the game shows Rhyme and Reason, Match Game, Make Me Laugh, and the Playboy Channel's Everything Goes, and joined former Gong Show panelist Jamie Farr on Hollywood Squares Game Show Week II in 2004. In 2003, she appeared as herself in Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, the semi-biographical film about Gong Show creator Chuck Barris directed by George Clooney.

During the 1980s and into the early 1990s, Morgan continued working in film, appearing in Loose Shoes in 1980, Night Patrol in 1984, and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York in 1992. Her Broadway credit, Sugar Babies in 1981, added a stage dimension to a career that had spanned recording, television, film, and live performance across several decades.