Anecdotes

Had a #5 U.S. pop hit/#2 U.S. R&B hit with "Love Letters" in 1962. The artist and her recording were also nominated for a Grammy Award the following year.

On TV, she is widely known for her role of Hester-Sue Terhune on the American television series "Little House on the Prairie".

In 1962, she toured the United Kingdom as support act on the Everly Brothers tour.

She toured Europe as a singer with Cab Calloway's Orchestra.

She appeared as a contestant on the December 26, 1957 episode of "You Bet Your Life", hosted by Groucho Marx. Lester sang "You Do Something to Me". The chosen category was "Mother Goose", a subject she admitted knowing nothing about; George Fenneman fed the correct answers to her, and she and her partner won $1,000.

She was offered the role eventually taken by Diahann Carroll in the 1968-71 TV series, "Julia".

In the early 1970s, she gave up singing commercially and turned to acting.

She recorded an album of gospel music entitled "I Saw Love" in 1984.

In 1964, she won a Theatre World Award for her performance in the off-Broadway show "Cabin in the Sky".

She won a scholarship to study music at San Francisco State College, and in the early 1950s, she began performing under the name "Ketty Frierson" in the Purple Onion club before becoming "Ketty Lester" a few years later in Los Angeles.

Has one son: William.