<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=us-ascii"></head><body dir="auto"><div><span></span></div><div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=us-ascii"><div><span></span></div><div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><div><span></span></div><div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><div><span></span></div><div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><div><span></span></div><div>Courtesy of CNN at:</div><div><br></div><div><a href="http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/16/entertainment/feat-lesley-gore-obit/">http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/16/entertainment/feat-lesley-gore-obit/</a></div><div><div><br></div><div>-------------------------------------</div><div><br></div><div><div class="el__leafmedia el__leafmedia--sourced-paragraph" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><h2 class="pg-headline" itemprop="headline name" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; font-weight: 300; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; line-height: 1.06452; font-size: 3.875rem; font-family: CNN, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, Utkal, sans-serif; color: rgb(38, 38, 38);">It's My Party' singer Lesley Gore dead</h2><p class="zn-body__paragraph" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 140px 15px 0px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><cite class="el-editorial-source" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-style: normal; font-weight: 700;">(CNN)</cite>Lesley Gore, whose No. 1 hit "It's My Party" kicked off a successful singing career while she was still in high school, has died. She was 68.</span></p></div><p class="zn-body__paragraph" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 140px 15px 0px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Her death was confirmed by family friend Blake Morgan, who produced her 2005 album, "Ever Since."</span></p><p class="zn-body__paragraph" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 140px 15px 0px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"We loved her and we are very sad. She was an incredibly powerful, incredibly beautiful talent," he said.</span></p><p class="zn-body__paragraph" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 140px 15px 0px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;"><font color="#000000"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><a href="http://www.people.com/article/lesley-gore-singer-its-my-party-dies" target="_blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none;">According to People magazine</a>, the cause of death was cancer.</span></font></p><p class="zn-body__paragraph" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 140px 15px 0px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Gore, born Lesley Sue Goldstein, had just turned 17 when "It's My Party," produced by Quincy Jones, topped the charts in June 1963. The song, about a girl whose party is ruined when she catches her boyfriend, Johnny, with a rival, became a pop classic, its catchy chorus often imitated.</span></p><p class="zn-body__paragraph" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 140px 15px 0px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">She was an overnight success, with fans suddenly converging on her family's house in Tenafly, New Jersey.</span></p><ul class="cn cn-list-hierarchical-xs cn--idx-8" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; list-style: none;"></ul><p class="zn-body__paragraph" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 140px 15px 0px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"When the disc jockey ... would say, 'That was Lesley Gore, the sweetie pie from Tenafly,' well, people just came to Tenafly. You know, I'd wake up and there were people camped out on the grass," she said in an interview, <a href="http://www.biography.com/people/lesley-gore-16606845#first-hit-song" target="_blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none;">according to Biography.com</a>. </span></p><p class="zn-body__paragraph" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 140px 15px 0px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The follow-ups, "Judy's Turn to Cry" and "She's a Fool," were in a similar teen-love vein, but Gore's next hit, "You Don't Own Me," was something else entirely.</span></p><p class="zn-body__paragraph" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 140px 15px 0px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"You Don't Own Me," also produced by Jones, was a dramatic assertion of independence and pride. Released in late 1963, it peaked at No. 2, kept out of the top spot by the Beatles' "I Want to Hold Your Hand." Over the years the song, written by John Madara and Dave White, became a feminist anthem, recorded by such artists as Dusty Springfield and Joan Jett. </span></p><p class="zn-body__paragraph" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 140px 15px 0px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">During the 2012 presidential campaign, a number of celebrities -- including Lena Dunham, Tavi Gevinson and Carrie Brownstein -- appeared in a commercial lip-synching the song in an effort to urge women to vote.</span></p><p class="zn-body__paragraph" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 140px 15px 0px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"It's hard for me to believe but we're still fighting for the same things we were then," Gore wrote on her Facebook page in 2012. "Yes, ladies, we've got to come together and get out there and vote and protect our bodies. They're ours. Please vote."</span></p><p class="zn-body__paragraph" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 140px 15px 0px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The political activism suited Gore. After her singing career started winding down in the late '60s, she volunteered for Robert Kennedy's 1968 presidential campaign. She later worked for New York politician Bella Abzug and such projects as a Bronx community health organization, <a href="http://healthpeople.org">healthpeople.org</a>. </span></p><p class="zn-body__paragraph" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 140px 15px 0px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"I worked for people like Robert Kennedy and I thought: 'Wow, that's what it's about. That's how you change the world,' " <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/23/arts/music/23mays.html" target="_blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none;">she told The New York Times in 2005</a>. </span></p><p class="zn-body__paragraph" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 140px 15px 0px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">She also did some acting, playing Pussycat, a Catwoman sidekick, on the TV series "Batman."</span></p><p class="zn-body__paragraph" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 140px 15px 0px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">As an adult Gore came out publicly as a lesbian, though <a href="http://www.afterellen.com/people/43863-interview-with-lesley-gore" target="_blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none;">she told the website AfterEllen.com</a> she never tried to hide her sexuality. </span></p><p class="zn-body__paragraph" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 140px 15px 0px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"I just never found it was necessary because I really never kept my life private. Those who knew me, those who worked with me, were well aware," she said in 2005. "Times were very different then, so, you know, I just tried to live as normally as humanly possible. But as truthfully as humanly possible."</span></p><p class="zn-body__paragraph" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 140px 15px 0px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">She had some songwriting success with a tune she co-wrote with her brother Michael, "Out Here on My Own," a song from the 1980 film "Fame" that was nominated for an Oscar, but she went almost 30 years before releasing an album of new material in 2005. "Ever Since," a low-key collection of songs, was "very sparse, very organic," Gore told The New York Times.</span></p><p class="zn-body__paragraph" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 140px 15px 0px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">She had continued to perform, however, always ready to trot out "It's My Party" and her other hits.</span></p><p class="zn-body__paragraph" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 140px 15px 0px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"If I've learned anything in this business, how stupid would it be not to do 'It's My Party' when people come to hear it?" she said.</span></p><p class="zn-body__paragraph" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 140px 15px 0px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Gore is survived by her partner of more than 30 years, jewelry designer Lois Sasson.</span></p></div><div>-------------------------------------</div><div><br></div><div><img src="cid:4F395091-27DE-40A2-927A-B647BDF008D6" alt="image1.jpeg" id="4F395091-27DE-40A2-927A-B647BDF008D6"></div><div><a href="http://www.tomandrodna.com/Songs/Lesley_Gore/Lesley_Gore.jpg">http://www.tomandrodna.com/Songs/Lesley_Gore/Lesley_Gore.jpg</a></div><div><br></div><div><b>"It's My Party"</b> by Lesley Gore</div><div><a href="http://www.TomandRodna.com/Songs/Lesley_Gore/Its_My_Party.mp3">http://www.TomandRodna.com/Songs/Lesley_Gore/Its_My_Party.mp3</a></div><div><br></div><div><b>"Judy's Turn to Cry" </b>by Lesley Gore</div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><a href="http://www.TomandRodna.com/Songs/Lesley_Gore/Judys_Turn_to_Cry.mp3">http://www.TomandRodna.com/Songs/Lesley_Gore/Judys_Turn_to_Cry.mp3</a></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>"Sunshine, Lollipops, and Rainbows" </b>by Lesley Gore</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><a href="http://www.TomandRodna.com/Songs/Lesley_Gore/Sunshine_Lollipops_and_Rainbows.mp3">http://www.TomandRodna.com/Songs/Lesley_Gore/Sunshine_Lollipops_and_Rainbows.mp3</a></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>"You Don't Own Me"</b> by Lesley Gore</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><a href="http://www.TomandRodna.com/Songs/Lesley_Gore/You_Dont_Own_Me.mp3">http://www.TomandRodna.com/Songs/Lesley_Gore/You_Dont_Own_Me.mp3</a></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Rest well, Ms. Gore.</span></div><div><br><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Seeya 'round town, Moscow, because . . .</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"Moscow Cares"</span></div><div><a href="http://www.moscowcares.com/" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><font color="#000000">http://www.MoscowCares.com</font></a></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">  </span></div><div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Tom Hansen</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Moscow, Idaho</span></div></div><div><br></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></body></html>