A sultry, smoky-voiced master of understatement, Julie London enjoyed considerable popularity during the cool era of the 1950s. London never had the range of <a href="spotify:artist:5V0MlUE1Bft0mbLlND7FJz">Ella Fitzgerald</a> or <a href="spotify:artist:1bgyxtWjZwA5PQlDsvs9b8">Sarah Vaughan</a>, but often used restraint, softness, and subtlety to maximum advantage. An actor as well as a singer, London played with heavyweights like Gregory Peck and Rock Hudson in various films, and was married to <a href="spotify:artist:1EJmz8mW39EqtQ2I616br2">Jack Webb</a> of Dragnet fame for seven years before marrying songwriter <a href="spotify:artist:4XN18j3qfTGghKvcCew5QV">Bobby Troup</a> ("Route 66"). London performed her biggest hit, "Cry Me a River," in the <a href="spotify:artist:5xd8JF8LzoWiRJKTq0rSaS">Jayne Mansfield</a> film The Girl Can't Help It. After recording her last album, Yummy, Yummy, Yummy, in 1969, she continued to act -- playing a nurse on the NBC medical drama Emergency from 1974 until 1978. London left show biz altogether in the late '70s. In the mid-'90s she suffered a stroke, which led to a half-decade of poor health and ultimately contributed to her death on October 18, 2000. ~ Alex Henderson, Rovi