Lesley Gore obituary

Pop music in the 1960s had its share of strong female singers, but Lesley Gore was one of the few with songs whose lyrics and message matched their independent persona. Her series of passionate and defiant teen anthems began with It’s My Party (“and I’ll cry if I want to”), continued with Judy’s Turn to Cry, and concluded with You Don’t Own Me, which has been claimed as a protofeminist statement.

Gore, who has died of lung cancer, aged 68, once told an interviewer: “There’s nothing more wonderful than standing on stage and shaking your finger and singing ‘Don’t tell me what to do.’” Gore later appeared in films and TV series and was a campaigner for women’s rights.

Daughter of Ronny and Leo, she was born Lesley Sue Goldstein into a middle-class Jewish family in New York City and grew up in Tenafly, New Jersey. Her father owned the Peter Pan swimsuit and underwear manufacturing company. As a child, she sang along to the latest hits in front of her bedroom mirror: “I slicked my hair back in a credible Elvis imitation,” she said.

She was still a junior at Dwight preparatory school for girls, in Englewood, New Jersey, when in 1963, a tape of her singing reached the jazz composer and producer Quincy Jones, who was working at Mercury Records. He immediately recognised a star in the making and produced the brash It’s My Party, a tale of young love betrayed, with its direct chorus aimed at Lesley’s peer group – “you would cry too, if it happened to you”.

The record was released a week later – Lesley heard it for the first time while driving to school – and in May 1963 the 17-year-old had a No 1 hit which went on to sell more than a million copies in the US. In Britain, the song was a No 9 hit.

The follow-up disc, Judy’s Turn to Cry, continued the storyline of It’s My Party: Judy being the girl who had stolen the singer’s boyfriend. Next came another top 10 hit She’s a Fool, and then You Don’t Own Me. This record peaked at no 2 in the US hit parade, being prevented from reaching the top spot by the Beatles’ I Want to Hold Your Hand.

This was a more reflective song that, as the pop historian Gillian Gaar has pointed out, appeared in the same year as Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique and stated the singer’s “desire for establishing her own autonomy”. It was also Gore’s most enduring hit. There were later recordings by Dusty Springfield, Joan Jett and Amy Winehouse, and You Don’t Own Me was featured in the 1996 film The First Wives Club, sung by Diane Keaton, Goldie Hawn and Bette Midler.

You Don’t Own Me had been composed for Gore by two male songwriters, Dave White and John Madara, but its sentiments were a perfect fit with Gore’s rapidly maturing outlook on life and the music business. Despite her considerable success, she realised that the record company “only cared about males. They just thought it was easier to sell males. It really got to me after a while.”

There were further smaller hits including Maybe I Know (1964) by Ellie Greenwich and Jeff Barry, and Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows (1965), the first successful composition by Marvin Hamlisch. Throughout her pop-star years, Gore combined her career with her studies, graduating from high school in 1964 and enrolling at Sarah Lawrence College, New York, just as Maybe I Know entered the charts. Gore eventually graduated with a degree in English and American literature. During holidays she appeared in two teen-oriented movies and made her television acting debut, as Catwoman’s assistant, Pussycat.

In the late 60s, she formed a songwriting partnership with her brother, Michael. Their composition Out Here on My Own appeared in the film Fame and was nominated for an Oscar in 1980. Lesley’s association with Mercury ended in 1969, but she later recorded albums for Tamla Motown’s MoWest label and A&M, where she was reunited with Jones.

During the 80s and 90s, Gore continued to perform occasionally, ensuring that audiences would hear the old hits as well as her newer songs. Her final album was Ever Since, issued in 2005 by the small Engine Company label.

In 2004, she became a presenter of In the Life, a Public Broadcasting Service programme devoted to LGBT issues. This was a tacit acknowledgment of her lesbianism, which, she subsequently said, had been evident to those around her for many years, if not to a wider public. In 2012, Gore adapted You Don’t Own Me for a feminist campaign to persuade women to vote in the US presidential election. At her death she left unfinished a memoir and a musical show to be based on her life.

She is survived by her partner, Lois Sasson, her mother and her brother.