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.

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.

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. She did a number of other variety shows as well.

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 (TV series).

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".

It was during the 1970s when she gained a new generation of fans as a foul-mouthed but entertaining regular panelist on the game/variety shows The Gong Show and Rhyme or Reason in the late 1970s, and in the 1980 "behind-the-scenes" movie version of The Gong Show.

It has been widely reported that Jaye P. Morgan was fired during the The Gong Show's last season for ripping her top off (with no bra underneath) while "Gene Gene The Dancing Machine" was onstage. The firing came down from NBC network programming officials and not from either Chuck Barris or the show's other producers, and according to most reports this came at the demand of the network's Standards and Practices department; the "censors" were reportedly having to censor Morgan's comments and gestures as much as ten times per episode, and as the show progressed the obscenties increased in severity and duration to the point that it would actually interfere with the flow of the show. Morgan as of the time of this entry refuses to discuss the firing other than to acknowledge it happened.

The film clip of her exposing herself was saved, and later used in The Gong Show Movie.

[edit] Hit records

"Are You Lonesome Tonight" (better-known hit for Elvis Presley) (backed with "Miss You") (1959)
"Chee Che 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 Che Oo Chee", duet with Perry Como) (1955)