Ketty Lester is a well-known American singer and actress best recognized for her role on “Little House on the Prairie” and her 1960 hit track “Love Letters.”
Lester was born on August 16, 1934, as “Revoyda Frierson” in Hope, Arkansas, the daughter of a farmer and one of 15 children. She began singing in her church choir and eventually won a scholarship to study at San Francisco State College.
In the early 1950s, she began playing in the city’s Purple Onion Club as Ketty Lester. She later toured Europe with Cab Calloway’s ensemble. Her first hit was “Queen For A Day,” and she then signed with Era Records in Los Angeles, where she recorded “I’m a Fool to Want You” and “Love Letters.”
The song peaked at number two on the Billboard R&B chart and number four on the UK singles chart, selling over one million copies. Love Letters was ranked 176th on the Recording Industry Association of America’s Songs of the Century list in 1991.
Lester recorded for Era with little success until 1964, when she signed with RCA. She released numerous failed singles and two albums for that label, “The Soul of Me” and “Where Is Love?” in a style reminiscent of Dinah Washington and Nancy Wilson.
She later signed with Tower Records and released the single and album “When A Woman Loves A Man,” which was a response to Percy Sledge’s “When a Man Loves a Woman.” She also won a Theatre World Award for her off-Broadway performance in “Cabin in the Sky” during this time.
She stopped singing and began acting in the 1970s. She rose to prominence as a television actress in the 1970s and 1980s, playing “Helen Grant” on Days of Our Lives and Hester-Sue Terhune on Little House on the Prairie. She also appeared in a number of other television shows and films, including Uptight (1968), Blacula (1972), Uptown Saturday Night (1974), The Prisoner of Second Avenue (1975), Street Knight (1993), and House Party 3.