Jaye P. Morgan (born Mary Margaret Morgan; December 3, 1931 ) is an American singer, actress, and game show panelist.

Early life

Morgan was born in Mancos in Montezuma County in far southwestern Colorado. Her family moved to California by the time she was in high school. Morgan had six siblings; five brothers and one sister. In the late 1940s, at Verdugo Hills High School in the Tujunga neighborhood of Los Angeles, 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. She was married briefly to Michael Baiano from 1954-1955.

Career

In 1953, Morgan made a recording of "Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries" issued by Derby Records, which made it to #26 on the U.S. Billboard record chart. Soon after, she received an RCA Victor recording contract, and she had five hits in one year, including her biggest hit "That's All I Want from You", which reached #3 on the chart. Other notable hits included "There's a Dream in My Heart" by Rolande Maxwell Young, "The Longest Walk" and "Pepper Hot Baby". In 1954, she married Michael Baiano. She joined MGM Records in 1959 after spending the previous six years with RCA Victor. From 1954 to 1955, Morgan was a vocalist on the ABC television series show Stop the Music. In November 1955, the British music magazine, NME, reported that Morgan was the top female vocalist in the U.S. Cash Box poll. Beginning January 11, 1954, she was a featured singer on the Robert Q. Lewis Show on CBS-TV. In 1956, she had her own show, The Jaye P. Morgan Show, and made guest appearances on a number of other variety shows. She was a charter member of the Robert Q. Lewis "gang" on Lewis's weekday program 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. In 1958, Morgan appeared on ABC's The Pat Boone Chevy Showroom. On October 6, 1960, she guest starred on NBC's The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford. In 1961, Morgan was cast as Sally Dwight in the episode "Money and the Minister" of the CBS anthology series, General Electric Theater, hosted by Ronald Reagan. In 1962, she played Patty Maxwell in "Patti's Tune" of the CBS military sitcom/drama Hennesey, starring Jackie Cooper. That same year, she was cast as Kitty Flanders in "That's Showbiz" on NBC's The Joey Bishop Show. In 1964, she portrayed the character Ruth Evans in the episode "Sunday Father" of the NBC medical drama The Eleventh Hour. Although Morgan continued to spend considerable time in the 1960s and 1970s performing in nightclubs, she made additional appearances on television as well as in films. In 1966, she guest-starred on CBS's My Three Sons in the episode "A Falling Star", playing the fading singer Claudia Farrell. Later, in 1973, Morgan played herself in the episode "The Songwriter" of the sitcom The Odd Couple. That year she appeared too as Magda Valentine in the film The All-American Boy. She performed the theme song, "Coming into My Own," of the short-lived NBC situation comedy Fay, starring Lee Grant, which aired in 1975–1976. In 1978, Morgan guest-starred on The Muppet Show and sang "That Old Black Magic" as a duet with Dr. Teeth. Morgan made numerous appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson during this period, and in the 1980s and into the early 1990s she performed again on the big screen, working in supportive roles in films such as Loose Shoes (1980), Night Patrol (1984), and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992).

Game show panelist

One of Morgan's first appearances as a game show panelist was on the 1970 pilot for "The Honeymoon Game" (a then re-working of earlier pilots for The Joker's Wild). She represented the category of Music on the show, asking questions to the contestants in that category. From 1976 to 1978, Morgan was a regular panelist on The Gong Show, in which she achieved notoriety for flashing her breasts while on live camera during a Gene, Gene, the Dancing Machine performance. NBC banned her from the program for the flashing incident. The 1980 "behind-the-scenes" The Gong Show Movie features the breast-flashing footage. Morgan also appeared on the Playboy Channel game show Everything Goes, and with her former Gong Show partner Jamie Farr on Hollywood Squares Game Show Week II in 2004. Morgan appeared as herself in Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, a 2003 semi-biographical film about the life of Chuck Barris, creator of The Gong Show, The Dating Game, and The Newlywed Game. She also appeared on Rhyme and Reason, Match Game, Make Me Laugh.

Discography

Albums

Singles