OBITUARIES
’60s TEEN FAVE LESLEY GORE DIES OF LUNG CANCER AT 68
By John Pareles | NY TIMES Staff Writer | February 16, 2015, 4:30 PM
Lesley Gore, Teenage Voice of Heartbreak, Dies at 68 – NYTimes.com .
LESLEY GORE, who was a teenager in the 1960s when she recorded hit songs about heartbreak and resilience that went on to become feminist touchstones, died on Monday in Manhattan. She was 68.
Lois Sasson, her partner of 33 years, said Ms. Gore, a nonsmoker, died of lung cancer at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell hospital.
With songs like “It’s My Party,” “Judy’s Turn to Cry” and the indelibly defiant 1964 single “You Don’t Own Me” — all recorded before she was 18 — Ms. Gore made herself the voice of teenage girls aggrieved by fickle boyfriends, moving quickly from tearful self-pity to fierce self-assertion.
“You Don’t Own Me,” written by John Madara and David White, originally reached No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100. It has been repeatedly rerecorded and revived by performers including Dusty Springfield, Joan Jett and the cast of the 1996 movie “The First Wives Club.”
“When I heard it for the first time, I thought it had an important humanist quality,” Ms. Gore told The Minneapolis Star-Tribune in 2010. “As I got older, feminism became more a part of my life and more a part of our whole awareness, and I could see why people would use it as a feminist anthem. I don’t care what age you are — whether you’re 16 or 116 — there’s nothing more wonderful than standing on the stage and shaking your finger and singing, ‘Don’t tell me what to do.’ ”
MCRFB note: For the rest of this New York Times Lesley Gore Obituary article (February 16, 2015), please GO HERE.
John Pareles | Copyright © 2015 New York Times
