Real name: Katherine Laverne Starks

Effective period / Period of releases: 1945 - 2007

American pop and jazz singer who enjoyed considerable success in the 1940's-1960's.
Born July 21, 1922 in Dougherty, Oklahoma, USA.
Died November 3, 2016 (age of 94) in Beverly Hills, California, USA.
Married to bandleader Vic Schoen (1951 - 1954) (divorced).

She sang with the orchestras of Charlie Barnet, Bob Crosby and Joe Venuti (in the early 40's), after being a substitute for Marion Hutton with Glenn Miller's band in the summer of 1939. She is now perhaps best remembered for her Seasonal Classics, "The Man With The Bag" and "I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm", both of which were remixed in the 2000s and are often used in several commercial advertisements and or played in their entirety in television specials during the various Christmas seasons.
She charted forty-one times between 1948 and 1967, including 14 top ten songs. Some of her top hits included: "Hoop-Dee-Doo", (#2 U.S., 1950), "Wheel of Fortune", (#1 U.S., 1952), "Comes A-Long A-Love", (#9 U.S., #1 UK, 1952), "Side by Side", (#3 U.S., 1953) and "Rock and Roll Waltz", (#1 U.S., 1955).