Ketty Lester

Born in Hope, Arkansas, Ketty Lester is an American singer and actress who began performing under that name in San Francisco clubs in the early 1950s and later toured Europe and South America with Cab Calloway's orchestra. She signed with Era Records and in 1961 released Love Letters, a top-five US and UK hit that sold over a million copies and earned an RIAA gold disc; the album Love Letters brought a Grammy nomination for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. She won a Theatre World Award in 1964 for her off-Broadway work in Cabin in the Sky. Turning to acting in the early 1970s, she appeared in Blacula (1972), Uptown Saturday Night (1974), The Prisoner of Second Avenue (1975), and later House Party 3 (1994). On television she played Helen Grant on Days of Our Lives and Hester-Sue Terhune on Little House on the Prairie. The Arkansas Black Hall of Fame inducted her in 2022.