Ketty Lester
Ketty Lester (born Revoyda Frierson; August 16, 1934) is an American singer and actress known for her 1961 hit single "Love Letters", which reached the top 5 of the charts in the US and the UK. She is also known for her role as Hester-Sue Terhune on the American television series Little House on the Prairie. In 2022, she was inducted into the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame.
Ketty Lester

General Artists Corporation (management) · front back · Public domain
- Name
- Ketty Lester
- Birth Name
- Revoyda Frierson
- Born
- 16 August 1934
- Birthplace
- Hope, Arkansas, U.S.
- Occupation
- Singer, actress
- Spouse
- Bill Buckley
- Full name
- Revoyda Frierson.
- Nationality
- United States
- Fields
- traditional pop · soul · jazz
- Honours
- Theatre World Award
- Languages
- English
VALÉORINE Encyclopedia
VALÉORINE documentary reading
Documentary summary
Ketty Lester (born Revoyda Frierson; August 16, 1934) is an American singer and actress known for her 1961 hit single "Love Letters", which reached the top 5 of the charts in the US and the UK. She is also known for her role as Hester-Sue Terhune on the American television series Little House on the Prairie. In 2022, she was inducted into the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame.
Admitted source layer · organised and presented by VALÉORINE
Note VALÉORINE
No house-authored Note is published until its assertions and sources pass the VALÉORINE evidence contract. The documentary article remains available in full while that enrichment is being consolidated.
Documentary enrichment in progress · no unsupported statement published
Reference Check
Propose documentary evidence for Ketty Lester. A contribution is never written directly as fact: identity, source, rights and evidence gates still decide.
Sign in to contribute
World of VALÉORINE
Documentary connections
Only confirmed graph relationships appear here. Images are shown only when their identity and reuse rights both pass the documentary gate.
Documentary evidence
Evidence Panel
not yet certified
- Identity
- resolved
- Independent source families
- 0
- Admitted assertions
- 0
- Open conflicts
- 0
Authority files
museum · 75a67f04-d582-44b3-980c-e77bfd2f6dfb · wikidata · Q775599 · wikipedia · Ketty Lester
In this article
Key facts
Key facts
• Name — Ketty Lester • Birth Name — Revoyda Frierson • Born — 16 August 1934 • Birthplace — Hope, Arkansas, U.S. • Genre — R&B • Occupation — Singer, actress • Instrument — Vocals • Years Active — 1957–present • Label — Era, RCA, London • Spouse — Bill Buckley
Life and career
Life and career
Ketty Lester was born Revoyda Frierson on August 16, 1934 in Hope, Arkansas. Her parents, Pearl and Arthur Frierson, were farmers who would eventually have a total of fifteen children. As a young child, Lester first sang in her church, and later in school choirs. She won a scholarship to study music at San Francisco State College, and in the early 1950s, she began performing under the name "Ketty Lester" in the city's Purple Onion club. She later toured Europe and South America as a singer with Cab Calloway's orchestra. Lester (as Revoyda Frierson) 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. Returning to California, she recorded her first single, "Queen for a Day", for the Everest label. She was introduced by Dorothy Shay to record producers and songwriters Ed Cobb and Lincoln Mayorga of The Four Preps and The Piltdown Men, who won her a contract with Era Records in Los Angeles. In 1961 they released her single "Love Letters" b/w "I'm a Fool to Want You". Lester's recording of "Love Letters", which featured Lincoln Mayorga's sparse piano arrangement and Earl Palmer on drums, rose to No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 early in 1962. The record also reached No. 2 on the R&B chart and No. 4 on the UK Singles Chart, selling over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc by the RIAA. In 1991, it was ranked 176th in the RIAA-compiled list of Songs of the Century. In 1962, she toured the UK as support act on the Everly Brothers tour. The follow-up, a version of George and Ira Gershwin's "But Not for Me" from the musical Girl Crazy, reached No. 41 in the U.S. pop charts and No. 45 in the UK. She released an album, Love Letters, which contained the tracks "You Can't Lie to a Liar" and a cover of Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land" (both of which were issued as singles) and was nominated for a Grammy in the Best Female Pop Vocal Performance category. Lester continued to record for Era with little success until 1964, when she signed with RCA. She released several unsuccessful singles for that label, and two albums, The Soul of Me and Where Is Love?, in a more R&B-oriented style that has been compared to Dinah Washington and Nancy Wilson. Some of her earlier recordings also featured on one side of an album shared with previously released tracks by Betty Everett. Also in 1964, she won a Theatre World Award for her performance in the off-Broadway show Cabin in the Sky. She moved to the Tower label, issuing a single and album, When A Woman Loves A Man, an answer record to Percy Sledge's "When a Man Loves a Woman". However, these releases, and later records for the Pete label, including a 1968 album titled Ketty Lester, met with little commercial success. By the early 1970s, Lester gave up singing commercially and turned to acting. She was reportedly offered the role eventually taken by Diahann Carroll in the 1968–71 TV series Julia, and appeared in a variety of movies, including Uptight (1968), Blacula (1972), Uptown Saturday Night (1974) and The Prisoner of Second Avenue (1975). Lester established herself as a television actress in the 1970s and 1980s, playing the roles of Helen Grant on Days of Our Lives (1975–77) and as Hester-Sue Terhune on Little House on the Prairie (1977–83), and she appeared on other television shows and movies, including The Night the City Screamed (1980). Lester recorded an album of gospel music titled I Saw Him in 1984, and returned to films, appearing in Street Knight (1993), and as Aunt Lucy in House Party 3 (1994). In 2020, she released her memoir, Ketty Lester: From Arkansas To Grammy Nominated Love Letters to Little House on the Prairie. Lester attended the 50th Anniversary Reunion for Little House on the Prairie in 2024, meeting fans and also delivering a sermon on stage.
Albums
Albums
• Love Letters – ERA, 1962 • Betty Everett & Ketty Lester – 1964 (only on two tracks) • The Soul of Me – RCA Victor, 1964 • Where Is Love? – Armed Forces Radio & Television Service Station Library, 1965 • When a Woman Loves a Man – Tower, 1966 • Ketty Lester – Records by Pete, Sheffield, 1969 • Ketty Lester in Concert – Sheffield, 1977 • A Collection of Her Best – AVI Records, 1982 • I Saw Love – Mega, 1984
Singles
Singles
• Year — Title — Chart positions — Album • U.S. R&B — U.S. Hot 100 — UK • 1962 — "Queen for a Day" b/w "I Said Goodbye to My Love" — — — — — — — Non-album tracks • "Love Letters" b/w "I'm a Fool to Want You" — 2 — 5 — 4 — Love Letters • "But Not for Me" b/w "Once Upon a Time" (from Love Letters) — — — 41 — 45 — Non-album tracks • "You Can't Lie to a Liar" b/w "River of Salt" — — — 90 — — • "This Land Is Your Land" b/w "Love Is for Everyone" — — — 97 — — • 1963 — "Fallen Angel" b/w "Lullaby for Lovers" (Non-album track) — — — — — — — Love Letters • 1964 — "Some Things Are Better Left Unsaid" b/w "The House Is Haunted (by the Echo of Your Last Goodbye)" — — — 127 — — — Non-album tracks • "Roses Grow with Thorns" b/w "Please Don't Cry Anymore" — — — — — — • "I Trust You Baby" b/w "Theme from 'The Luck of Ginger Coffey'" — — — — — — • "You Go Your Way (and I'll Go Crazy)" b/w "Variations on a Theme by Bird" — — — — — — • 1965 — "Pretty Lies, Pretty Make Believe" b/w "(Looking for a) Better World" — — — — — — • "I'll Be Looking Back" b/w "West Coast" — — — — — — • 1966 — "Secret Love" b/w "Love Me Just a Little Bit" — — — — — — • "When a Woman Loves a Man" b/w "We'll Be Together Again" — — — — — — — When a Woman Loves a Man • 1968 — "I Will Lead You" b/w "Now That I Need Him" — — — — — — — Non-album tracks • 1969 — "Cracker Box Livin'" b/w "The Measure of a Man" — — — — — — • "Show Me" b/w "Since I Fell for You" — — — — — — — Ketty Lester • 1984 — "Jesus Laid His Hands on Me" "One Day at a Time" — — — — — — — I Saw Love • "Have You Heard?" b/w "She'd Never Heard of Anyone Called Jesus" — — — — — — Sources:
Identity and origins
Identity and origins
Ketty Lester was recorded at birth as Revoyda Frierson. She also worked under the name Ketty Lester. Her recorded language was English.
Identity
Identity
Ketty Lester is recorded as actress, singer and musician.
Places
Named by the record
Places
Only places the record itself states, plotted where the house gazetteer settles their coordinates. Nothing is inferred from a name or a nationality.
US.
Country
Hope.
Birth place
Primary material
Documents and archives
reference work
- Wikidata, structured authority record Q775599: Ketty Lester
Reputable secondary · Wikidata
- “Ketty Lester”, English Wikipedia, consulted as further reading
Reputable secondary · Wikipedia
Institutional database
- MusicBrainz artist record for Ketty Lester
Scholarly · MetaBrainz Foundation
Literature
Scholarly footprint
A count of publications is evidence of attention, not of standing, and is given here only as a measure.
Citations
References
Each reference names the institution holding it, so a reader may go to the document itself.
Institutional database
MusicBrainz artist record for Ketty LesterMetaBrainz Foundation
Verifiedreference work
Partially resolvedreference work
Partially resolved
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 15 August 2026.
Elsewhere in Film memorabilia
37,589 published records in this field, each with its sources named.
- Ketan MehtaPerson
- Kether DonohuePerson
- Ketki DavePerson
- Kett TurtonPerson
- Keve HjelmPerson
- Kevin AllenPerson
- Kevin AltieriPerson
- Kevin AndersonPerson
Best supported in this field
For owners
Own a work by Ketty Lester?
A specialist will read what you send and tell you what the house can establish, what it cannot, and whether the object is suited to sale. There is no charge and no obligation. The object stays with you throughout; nothing is shipped to us unless it is arranged in writing beforehand.