Lesley Gore, best known for singing the 1960s hits "It's My Party," "Judy's Turn to Cry" and "You Don't Own Me," has died. She was 68. 
 
 Gore died Monday in New York City after a battle with cancer, said Blake Morgan, the chief executive of ECR Music Group, which released Gore’s latest album. 
 
 While still in high school, Gore burst onto the music scene in 1963 with "It's My Party." The Quincy Jones-produced single, a pouty song from the perspective of a girl lamenting that the boy of her choice has spurned her, topped the charts. 
 
 That song was followed by others, including the vengeful sequel "Judy’s Turn to Cry," the resigned "Maybe I Know" and the upbeat "Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows," as well as the one that irrevocably linked her to the feminist movement: "You Don’t Own Me." 
 
 "She was a wonderful human being — caring, giving, a great feminist, great woman, great human being, great humanitarian," Lois Sasson, Gore’s partner of more than three decades, told the Associated Press. 
 
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 Jones, who produced several songs Gore sang, said Monday that he was heartbroken over her passing. Recalling her teenage years, he said in a statement: "Lesley was an incredibly soulful singer/songwriter even at that young and that was why the world embraced her songs the way it did." 
 
 As a songwriter, Gore worked with her brother Michael. Their "Out Here on My Own" from the 1980 film “Fame” was nominated for an Academy Award. 
 
 Gore also dabbled in television acting, playing the role of Pussycat in the cult 1960s show "Batman." 
 
 Born in 1946, Gore grew up in Tenafly, N.J. After high school, she slowed the breakneck pace of her music career as she earned a bachelor’s degree in English and American literature at Sarah Lawrence College, then hit the nightclub circuit. 
 
 "Oddly enough, the performer whose sound she projects most strongly is Bing Crosby," the New York Times said in 1969. "She has Mr. Crosby’s casual, low-throated manner of talking and in the easygoing passages of her songs she uses a husky, glottal projection that is very reminiscent of the old groaner in his heyday." 
 
 She appeared on Broadway in "Smokey Joe’s Cafe" in the late 1990s. 
 
 A few years later, she was a host of "In the Life," a PBS series that dealt with gay and lesbian issues. She publicly came out as a lesbian around that time, and she told AfterEllen.com in 2005 that she realized it in her early 20s. 
 
 Also in 2005, she released her first album in three decades. The jazz-, folk- and indie-tinged "Ever Since," produced by Morgan, heavily featured new material but also revisited "You Don’t Own Me" and "Out Here on My Own." 
 
 "Lesley was like my rock ’n’ roll godmother," Morgan told the Los Angeles Times, adding that he had known her since his childhood. "It was a very courageous record for her to make, and a very defiant one…. We toured on that record for more than two years." 
 
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 It’s my party, and I’ll cry if I want to 
 
 Cry if I want to, cry if I want to 
 
 You would cry too if it happened to you 
 
 Nobody knows where my Johnny has gone 
 
 Judy left the same time 
 
 Why was he holding her hand 
 
 When he’s supposed to be mine? 
 
 It wasn’t exactly a feminist anthem. And “Johnny” was definitely a “he,” not a “she.” But over the decades, Lesley Gore, once a 16-year-old recording artist who wailed about a breakup in the overnight hit single “It’s My Party,” became a feminist, an open lesbian and an independent thinker. 
 
 She grew up in a time when differences weren’t readily accepted — though, once she found herself, she said she was never willing to hide. 
 
 “I just kind of lived my life naturally and did what I wanted to do,” she told the entertainment site After Ellen when she came out in 2005. “I didn’t avoid anything, I didn’t put it in anybody’s face. Times were very different then, so, you know, I just tried to live as normally as humanly possible. But as truthfully as humanly possible.” 
 
 Gore, who was most famous for “It’s My Party” — followed by its sequel, “Judy’s Turn to Cry,” and her anthem “You Don’t Own Me” — died on Monday from lung cancer. The 68-year-old was reportedly a nonsmoker. 
 
 “She was a wonderful human being — caring, giving, a great feminist, great woman, great human being, great humanitarian,” Lois Sasson, her partner for 33 years, told the Associated Press. 
 
 Born Lesley Goldstein, Gore was a 16-year-old student with a smoky voice when she first caught the attention of uber-producer Quincy Jones. In 1963, he helped her record her first hit “It’s My Party,” which embodied teenage angst and, nearly overnight, climbed to the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100. In the next two years, she recorded other hits such as “She’s A Fool,” “Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows,” which Marvin Hamlisch co-wrote, “That’s the Way Boys Are” and “Maybe I Know.” Sometimes naively — or maybe knowingly, as in the lesser-known 1964 song “Sometimes I Wish I Were a Boy” — many of her compositions took on gender. 
 
 Among them was a much bolder statement: “You Don’t Own Me,” a song that would become a common thread throughout her life. 
 
 You don’t own me, I’m not just one of your many toys 
 
 You don’t own me, don’t say I can’t go with other boys 
 
 And don’t tell me what to do 
 
 And don’t tell me what to say 
 
 The song continued: 
 
 So just let me be myself 
 
 That’s all I ask of you 
 
 I’m young and I love to be young 
 
 I’m free and I love to be free 
 
 To live my life the way I want 
 
 To say and do whatever I please 
 
 “As I got older, feminism became more a part of my life and more a part of our whole awareness, and I could see why people would use it as a feminist anthem,” Gore told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune in 2010. “I don’t care what are you are — whether you’re 16 or 116 — there’s nothing more wonderful than standing on the stage and shaking your finger and singing, ‘Don’t tell me what to do.'” 
 
 It seemed the song had become her personal mantra. 
 
 Unlike many other artists her age, the Brooklyn-born, New Jersey-raised singing sensation rejected a life on tour for a college education. When she turned 18, she decided to major in English and American literature at Sarah Lawrence College. 
 
 “The record company wasn’t thrilled, my agent wasn’t thrilled — but I sensed very early just how fickle this business is,” she told the Sacramento Bee. “I had a good brain in my head and I saw it was an opportunity to cloister myself.” 
 
 “It would have been very foolish of me to leave school to go into such an unpredictable field on a full-time basis,” she said at the time, according to the New York Times. 
 
 Gore kept her name alive by appearing on musical variety shows such as “Hullabaloo,” “Shindig!” and “The Ed Sullivan Show.” 
 
 While in college in 1967, she released her last top 20 hit called “California Nights.” She graduated the following year — a time when music started moving from girl-pop to psychedelic rock. Her music career began to suffer and she turned to performing in television, movies and on the stage. 
 
 “She was a serious artist that was way ahead of her time,” Ronnie Spector, leader of 1960s girl-group superstars the Ronettes, said in a statement, according to the AP. “She had a certain sound. But you want to be able to do new things too, and it can be hard on an artist that is so identified with a specific sound. Although she wasn’t in a girl group, Lesley was definitely a huge part of that era. But she continued to be creative, and kept looking ahead, and that’s how I will remember her.” 
 
 Gore played the Pink Pussycat in the 1960s TV series “Batman.” She booked small gigs. She wrote songs that never caught on. Then in 1980, she and her brother, Michael, co-wrote the Oscar-nominated single “Out Here On My Own” from the film “Fame.” 
 
 
 
 Gore in 2008. (Louis Lanzano/AP) 
 
 But she was more than a singer and songwriter. 
 
 In 2005, Gore spoke publicly for the first time about her sexuality when she hosted several episodes for a PBS series called “In the Life,” a news magazine that highlighted gay and lesbian issues. She talked about her partner, Sasson. 
 
 “I decided to host a couple of the ‘In the Life’ programs,” she told the New York Times in 2005. “And I did that really as a result of meeting a lot of young gay people in the Midwest who really had nothing to relate to. At least I felt this program is presenting them with some options.” 
 
 “I saw what a difference a show like ‘In the Life’ can make to their lives in some of these small towns where, you know, there are probably two gay people in the whole damn town,” she added in an interview with After Ellen. “It’s made real inroads for them. They come and talk to me about this stuff, so I know how important it is.” 
 
 That same year, Gore returned to the studio to lay down her comeback album, “Ever Since,” re-recording the song that perhaps started it all, “You Don’t Own Me.” But, this time, “it feels more like part of a conversation than a declaration of independence,” the New York Times said at the time. 
 
 “When I heard that song at the age of 17, it felt like a humanist song to me,” she told the newspaper. “I could see a guy singing that to a young woman as easily as I could see a young woman singing it to her boyfriend or father.” 
 
 Record executive Blake Morgan helped her produce her new album. 
 
 “She was a broad, she had moxy, she was tough,” he said, according to NPR. “She had all of that. And she had a strength. … There was something incredibly compelling about just who she was, on or off the record.” 
 
 Then, during the 2012 presidential campaign, Gore used “You Don’t Own Me” for an online public service announcement about reproductive rights. 
 
 “I have to say that when I first started singing, I didn’t think it was a very noble profession,” she told the New York Times in 2005. “I worked for people like Robert Kennedy and I thought: ‘Wow, that’s what it’s about. That’s how you change the world.’ And then I watched that disintegrate in front of my eyes, and it was very discouraging. 
 
 “But I have found over 43 years that I really rather love what I do. And it really does keep me in touch with people, in a way that a lot of people don’t get a chance to be in touch with people. So I have a newfound love and respect for my career.” ||||| Singer-songwriter Lesley Gore, who scored a massive hit in 1963 with “It’s My Party,” died Monday. She was 68. 
 
 Gore’s partner of 33 years, Lois Sasson, told the Associated Press that she died of cancer at New York-Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan. 
 
 Gore was born in Brooklyn and raised in New Jersey. Producer Quincy Jones discovered her when she was a teenager, and she went on to sign with Mercury Records. Gore’s early records were some of Jones’ first big hits. 
 
 The singer broke out into the music scene in 1963 with “It’s My Party,” which raced to No. 1 on the charts, was nominated for a Grammy and sold more than 1 million copies. She followed that up with such hits as “That’s the Way Boys Are,” “She’s a Fool,” “Maybe I Know,” “Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows” and “You Don’t Own Me,” which sold more than 1 million copies as well and landed her a No. 2 spot on the charts. 
 
 Gore was nominated for an Oscar, along with her brother Michael, for co-writing “Out Here on My Own” from 1980’s “Fame.” Her other film work includes co-writing “My Secret Love” for Allison Anders’ 1996 film “Grace of My Heart.” 
 
 She also appeared on Broadway, having a role in “Smokey Joe’s Cafe” in the late ’90s. 
 
 Her most recent album, her first in 30 years, came in 2005 with “Ever Since.” Near the end of her life, Gore had been working on a stage adaptation of her life. 
 
 Gore is survived by Sasson, her brother and her mother, Ronnie.
– Lesley Gore, the singer-songwriter who scored a huge hit as a 16-year-old with "It's My Party" in 1963, has died at the age of 68. Gore, who grew up in New Jersey and was discovered by Quincy Jones, followed up the Grammy-nominated chart-topper with hits including "She's a Fool," "Sunshine, Lollipops, and Rainbows," and "You Don't Own Me," which became a feminist anthem, reports the Los Angeles Times. Gore and her brother Michael were nominated for an Oscar for writing "Out Here on My Own" for 1980's Fame. She released Ever Since, her first album in 30 years, in 2005 and had been working on a stage adaptation of her life, Variety reports. She also played Catwoman's sidekick Pussycat in the 1960s Batman TV series. ECR Music Group chief Blake Morgan, who produced Gore's last album, says he had known her since his childhood. "Lesley was like my rock 'n' roll godmother," he tells the Times. "It was a very courageous record for her to make, and a very defiant one." Gore came out as a lesbian when she hosted a few episodes of the PBS series In the Life, which dealt with gay and lesbian issues. "She was a wonderful human being—caring, giving, a great feminist, great woman, great human being, great humanitarian," Lois Sasson, her partner of 33 years, tells the AP. Sasson says Gore, a nonsmoker, died of lung cancer yesterday at New York-Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan.