YOU REMEMBER MICHELE LEE?

According to the esteemed and pressed Wikipedia, (yes, I credit the pun to Spike Milligan), if you remember Michele Lee, it’s because of TV. She played “Karen Cooper Fairgate MacKenzie on the 1980s prime-time soap opera “Knots Landing.” That’s their opinion.

Over here, Michele will always be the cutie who pouted about wanting  “L. David Sloane” to leave her alone. Which you’ll find elsewhere on the blog. I thought she should get another entry. What, you were expecting me to post an entire Beach Boys or Jethro Tull discography instead? That’s not a reason for blogging. Really. But I digress.

“You’ll Remember Me” seems like an attempt to go beyond being mildly victimized by a love-hate for Mr. Sloane, to really take the spotlight.

It’s a song that could’ve been handed to Liza, or Eydie. If you listen to it long enough, you can see how it could have been a hit. Except in 1969 the beat was a bit too cha-cha and not Memphis soul, as Dusty Springfield might’ve recorded it? Does the production let Lee down? Or is it that Michele didn’t go overboard in that Shirley Bassey ear-catching kind of way? 

I think one can admit that back then, there was a bit of an enigma with Lee’s persona. You’re supposed to instantly “get it,” but Lee was not the outrageous show gal like Liza or Bassey, nor the total cutie pie like Judy Carne, and didn’t sing songs that were overtly sexual and venomous (Nancy Sinatra and her “Boots”). She was, what, Petula Clark without the adorable British accent?

Fortunately, there IS “Knots Landing,” which got her an Emmy nomination and kept her busy for nearly 15 years and 344 episodes. There’s also her Tony Award nominations for “Seesaw” in 1974 and “The Tale of the Allerlgist’s Wife” in 2001. I did see her in the latter, where she could still play the sophisticated vampy villain (Valerie Harper was the heroine). Speaking of villainy, Michele played trash author Jacqueline Susann in the TV movie “Scandalous Me,” and a few years ago, Madame Morrible on Broadway in “Wicked.”

“You’ll Remember Me.” Yes, you were right. Michele celebrated her 75th birthday last month, June 24.


Michele Lee
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