Born Gisele Lafleche in Winnipeg, Canada, the performer later known as Gisele MacKenzie earned recognition through her pop and rock successes with the singles “Hard to Get” and “Pepper-Hot Baby.” Between 1953 and 1957 she appeared regularly as a vocalist on the weekly broadcast Your Hit Parade, and her work eventually spanned recording studios, radio, television, and live theater.
While growing up in Winnipeg she studied both violin and piano, skills that, together with her vocal talent, increased her professional opportunities. After her marriage she adopted her husband’s surname, becoming Gisele MacKenzie, and secured her first paid engagement with the Bob Shuttleworth Band; Shuttleworth himself later served as her manager.
Her recording career gained momentum in the late 1940s after she was given her own radio program on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation network. The two minor chart entries “Hard to Get” and “Pepper-Hot Baby” appeared in 1955. Her initial four long-playing releases—Gisele MacKenzie, Mam’selle Gisele, Christmas With Gisele, and Gisele—were issued on the Vik imprint, a subsidiary of RCA Records. An anthology titled Hard to Get: The Best of Gisele MacKenzie collects the material she cut for that label, while a separate RCA series of children’s recordings was produced for the Cricket Playhour label.
MacKenzie launched her own NBC variety series in 1957, although the program ran for only a single season. Her television work had begun in 1950 with an appearance on The Jack Benny Program, which followed her regular stint on Your Hit Parade. She returned to network television in 1963 on ABC’s The Sid Caesar Show, where she performed a song each week and occasionally portrayed Caesar’s fourth wife.
Three further albums appeared in the early 1960s: Gisele MacKenzie at the Empire Room of the Waldorf Astoria, Gisele MacKenzie Sings Lullaby and Goodnight, and Losers’ Lullabies. She subsequently toured the United States, singing in nightclubs and taking leading roles in stage productions that included The King and I, South Pacific, Hello Dolly, and The Unsinkable Molly Brown.
Guest spots on MacGyver and Murder, She Wrote marked a modest television resurgence during the 1980s. She continued to compose and perform; in 1996 she wrote the civic anthem “My City, L.A.,” which found favor locally. Several years afterward she received a cancer diagnosis and died in early September 2003.
