Annie Ross

Annie Ross was a singer and actress who moved from Britain to America and became a leading figure in jazz vocalese. Born in Surrey, England, to Scottish vaudevillian parents, she first took the stage at three and won an MGM contract through a children's radio contest. In 1952 she wrote Twisted, a vocalese treatment of a Wardell Gray solo that became an underground hit and earned her Down Beat's New Star award. With Lambert, Hendricks & Ross she recorded seven albums between 1957 and 1962, beginning with Sing a Song of Basie (1957). She later acted in Straight On Till Morning (1972), Superman III (1983), Throw Momma from the Train (1987), Witchery (1988), Pump Up the Volume (1990) and Blue Sky (1994), and she supplied voices for The Wicker Man (1973) and Salon Kitty (1976). The National Endowment for the Arts gave her a Jazz Masters award in 2010, and she died in 2020.