Jaye P. Morgan, the 1950s pop hitmaker who became a household name for her freewheeling antics as a celebrity judge on "The Gong Show," died Monday of natural causes at age 94 in Longview, Washington.
Mark Sendroff, Morgan's longtime attorney and friend, confirmed her death. She had been living with her nephew Duke Morgan Spencer and niece Peggy Sue Spencer. She is survived by her son, Paul Kane. The New York Post reported on her passing and career in detail.
Morgan's six-decade career traced a path from Depression-era vaudeville stages to mid-century pop stardom to 1970s television spectacle, and one moment of on-air recklessness that helped end a network show.
Mary Margaret Morgan came into the world in a log cabin in Mancos, Colorado. By the time she was three, she was already performing as part of the Morgan Family traveling vaudeville act. That act held together until 1945, when the family's father died and the troupe disbanded.
At 17, Morgan picked up singing again professionally. She moved to California for high school, where classmates gave her the nickname "J.P.", a tag she later folded into her stage name.
In 1950 she joined orchestra leader Frank De Vol's band and sang with it for three years. Together they recorded "Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries" and "Just a Gigolo" on the small Derby Records label. That single climbed to No. 26 on the Billboard chart, enough to catch the attention of RCA Records, which offered her a recording contract.
The RCA deal launched Morgan into the top tier of female pop vocalists. In 1954, DownBeat magazine's annual DJ poll named her the best new female singer of the year. That same period, she made her Las Vegas debut at the New Frontier Hotel & Casino.
Then came 1955, a year that cemented her place in the pop charts. Morgan landed five hits, including two that cracked the Top 10: "That's All I Want From You" and "The Longest Walk." Three more, "Danger! Heartbreak Ahead," "If You Don't Want My Love," and "Pepper-Hot Baby", reached the Top 20. AP News confirmed she was one of the top female recording artists of that decade, with those five hits in a single year standing as the peak of her chart success.
She also recorded two Top 20 duets with Perry Como, "Chee Chee-Oo Chee (Sang the Little Bird)" and "Two Lost Souls", and cut "Mutual Admiration Society" with Eddy Arnold, which reached No. 47 on the Billboard singles chart.
By 1956 she had her own television program, "The Jaye P. Morgan Show," which featured four of her brothers. The entertainment world was losing other stars of that golden era just recently, Shelley Fabares, the beloved star of "The Donna Reed Show," died at 82 earlier this year, a reminder of how thin that generation's ranks have grown.
Morgan became a fixture on the television talk-show circuit. She appeared on programs hosted by Merv Griffin, Dick Cavett, and Mike Douglas, and was a regular on Robert Q. Lewis's national daytime variety show. She also turned up on Bert Parks's nighttime game show "Stop the Music."
Her five-year run as a guest on "The Tonight Show" with Johnny Carson produced some of her most memorable lines. During a 1972 episode, she told Carson flatly: "I take my body everyplace I go."
A 1984 profile in The New York Times captured the quality that made her a recurring booking:
"Jaye P. Morgan's devil-may-care ad libs on television game shows have probably made her more famous as a personality than as a singer. But the same kooky recklessness that inspires Miss Morgan's remarks is also a part of her musical sensibility."
That "kooky recklessness" also showed up on "The Muppet Show." When Kermit told Morgan it was a thrill to have her, she replied: "I'm really indifferent about being here." When the frog called the opening number cute, she shot back: "I hate cute."
In 1976, Morgan joined "The Gong Show" as a celebrity judge alongside Jamie Farr and Rip Taylor. The show awarded its daily winning performer a check for $516.32, a deliberately odd number that fit the program's anarchic spirit. Morgan later told the Los Angeles Times in 1992 that the gig suited her fine:
"It paid good money, and it was great exposure. I really enjoyed it."
But Morgan's tenure on the show is remembered most for one incident. During a performance by Eugene Patton, the dancing stagehand known as "Gene Gene the Dancing Machine", Morgan exposed her breasts on camera. The stunt helped bring an end to the show's run on NBC in 1978. The entertainment industry has seen its share of sudden, shocking departures in recent years, from the death of Nickelodeon's Christy Knowings at 46 to other losses that caught fans off guard.
Whether the on-air incident was the sole reason NBC pulled the plug or merely the final provocation in a string of controversies remains unclear. The source reporting notes only that the moment "helped bring an end" to the show's network run.
Morgan's career extended well beyond music and game shows. She appeared in "The All-American Boy" alongside Jon Voight and turned up in the 1992 holiday sequel "Home Alone 2" with Macaulay Culkin. A decade later, she played a role in "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind," the 2002 Miramax film directed by George Clooney that dramatized the life of "Gong Show" creator Chuck Barris.
On stage, she toured nationally in the musical revue "Sugar Babies" with Eddie Bracken. In the recording studio, she cut a solo album produced by Davis Foster and later recorded a joint album, "Long Time Friends," with entertainer Kaye Ballard. The passing of beloved screen and stage performers has become a steady drumbeat, Oscar-winning actress Brenda Fricker died at 81 not long ago, another loss from a generation that defined American entertainment.
Morgan married and divorced three times over the course of her life. The names of her former spouses were not disclosed in the reporting on her death.
In her later years, she settled in Longview, Washington, a small city along the Columbia River in the southwestern corner of the state. She lived there with her nephew and niece until her death Monday. The loss of entertainers who bridged old Hollywood and modern pop culture continues to thin a generation, Oscar-winning singer Glen Hansard was killed in a motorcycle crash at 56, a different kind of loss but part of the same steady erosion of talent that shaped American culture.
Morgan started performing before she could read. She outlasted vaudeville, the big-band era, the pop-chart wars of the 1950s, and the gonzo television of the 1970s. She did it all with a bluntness that network executives sometimes regretted and audiences never forgot.
They don't build careers like that anymore, and they certainly don't let you get away with what she got away with on live television.
