And on any given night she heard new songs from the likes of Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, George Gershwin and Harold Arlen.
Raised in New York City, where her father wrote for musicals, and in Los Angeles, where he was active in films, Whiting was surrounded by entertainment-world icons. Her aunt, Margaret Youngblood, was a vaudeville artist. Her mother, Eleanor Youngblood Whiting, managed singers such as Sophie Tucker. Her father, Richard “Dick” Whiting, was a songwriter. Whiting was born July 22, 1924, in Detroit. And as recently as 2009, her 1947 recording of “Time After Time” was heard in the film “Julie & Julia.” Her duet with Johnny Mercer on “Baby It’s Cold Outside” continues to be heard every holiday season. She recorded for the first time while she was still in her teens and was still performing as a cabaret artist in her 70s and 80s. The cause was not given.īlessed with a distinctive voice and a warm, insightful singing style, Whiting had a career that stretched over seven decades. Whiting died Monday at the Lillian Booth Actors Home in Englewood, N.J., said Jordan Strohl, administrator for the retirement home. Margaret Whiting, a pop singer for television, film, cabaret and Broadway whose recordings of such standards as “That Old Black Magic” and “Come Rain or Come Shine” sold millions of copies in the 1940s and ‘50s, has died.