An internationally-celebrated jazz vocalist and actress, Annie Ross was born in London on July 25, 1930. She landed her first movie role at 7 years old, singing "The Bonnie Banks o' Loch Lomond" in the short film Our Gang Follies of 1938. She acted alongside Judy Garland in 1943's Presenting Lily Mars and shifted her focus to music during the 1950s, joining the vocal jazz trio Lambert, Hendricks & Ross in 1957. Leaders of the vocalese genre, the group hit its stride in the early 1960s, when they released three albums with Columbia Records and earned a Grammy Awards for 1962's High Flying with Lambert, Hendricks & Ross. Ross also continued releasing albums of her own, working with Gerry Mulligan and Chet Baker on 1959's Annie Ross Sings a Song With Mulligan! and teaming up with composer John Barry for The Ember Years - Volume 2. She left Lambert, Hendricks & Ross' lineup in 1962, opened a nightclub in London, and recorded sporadically during the following decades. She also returned to acting, landing roles in movies like Superman III, Throw Momma from the Train, and Blue Sky. A U.S. citizen since the early 2000s, she died in New York City on July 21, 2020, at the age of 89.
