Corky Hale

Early life and education

Born Merrilyn Hecht in Freeport, Illinois, she learned piano, harp, flute, and cello by her teens. She studied at the Chicago Music Conservatory and Interlochen Center for the Arts. At 16, she enrolled at Stephens College for her final high school year. After graduation, she moved to Hollywood against her parents' wishes, briefly attended the University of Wisconsin–Madison, then transferred to UCLA. She is Jewish and has described herself as a 'Jewish princess who had a wonderful childhood'.

Career

Corky Hale got her start in 1950s Hollywood as a studio harpist, lending her playing to records by Chet Baker, June Christy, Ella Fitzgerald, Anita O'Day, and Frank Sinatra. She also sang with Freddy Martin at the Coconut Grove. Jerry Gray brought her to Las Vegas to play piano for Billie Holiday, and she later toured with Holiday. As a solo artist, she made the album Corky Hale Plays George Gershwin and Vernon Duke with Buddy Collette, Howard Roberts, and Chico Hamilton.

On The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson in 1968, she accompanied Tony Bennett and performed a song of her own. Her collaborators over the years include Liberace, Barbra Streisand, Elkie Brooks, Harry James, Peggy Lee, James Brown, Spike Jones, George Michael, and Björk. She produced the plays Give 'Em Hell, Harry and Lullaby of Broadway. Her performance venues range from Vibrato and Catalina Bar & Grill to the White House and the Kennedy Center.

While at the University of Wisconsin, she was among the few white students to join the NAACP. She taught birth control at Planned Parenthood in New York, serves on the National Advisory Board of NARAL and the board of WRRAP, and is an American Film Institute associate. She founded Angel Harvest, which collects unused food from restaurants, hotels, and events for distribution to the hungry and needy in Los Angeles.