Lesley Gore was born in Brooklyn, New York city on May 2nd, 1946. She was born as Lesley sue Goldstein but shortly after they switched to her father’s last name, from Goldstein to gore. She had loved singing from a young age and at 16 she recorded her first song “it’s my party”. It became a number one hit in 1963, she then followed it up with 10 more songs that made it to the top 40 including, “Judy’s turn to cry” and “you don’t own me”. She considered her song “you don’t own me” as her signature song. Lesley was also an actress and appeared on many talk shows. She played Catwoman in some episodes of “Batman” and in “TV land confidential” in 2007. After high school she continued to sing and make appearances while attending Sarah Lawrence college, she studied English and American English literature. Lesley composed a soundtrack to the movie “fame” in 1980 with her brother Michael gore.
In a 2005 interview on AfterEllen she stated that she was a lesbian and had been in a relationship with a luxury jewelry designer since 1982. She had known about her attraction to women from the time she was 20 and stated that although the music industry was “totally homophobic” she never felt the need to pretend she was straight. ‘I just kind of lived my life and did what I wanted to do. I didn’t avoid anything; I didn’t put it in anyone’s face.
In 2015 gore passed away of lung cancer, she was 68 years old. At the time of her death, she had been working on a memoir and a Broadway show based on her life.at the time of her death she had been with her significant other for 33 years. Her spouse donated Lesley’s papers to New York public library for the performing arts. They became public in 2022, it includes: family photos, scrapbook pages, annotated music and lyrics, business files, an unfinished memoir, and video recordings.
Lesley Gore has inspired many people. One of which is Melanie Martinez, she made a song using the chorus of “it’s my party” to make “pity party”. Regarding the song, Martinez said, “This was during my second session with Kara DioGuardi. It was awesome to write that song because I love music from the 50s and 60s. When I was singing, Kara said my voice reminded her of Judy Garland and artists from that time. I really wanted to write about no one showing up to my birthday party and the song is perfect inspiration for this theme. I love samples, especially older songs because they can put a new take on an old song. So, we were really inspired by that, and we sampled it for the first line of the chorus and that is how ‘Pity Party’ came about”. Although gore has passed away her legacy still lives on today in art form.
