The first lady of song, Ella Fitzgerald was one of the most prolific jazz recording artists of all time. She began her six-decade career when she was just 16 years of age. Fitzgerald was famous for her scat improvisation and her almost three-octave range. Throughout her career she won 13 Grammy awards (more than any other jazz musician) and was awarded honorary doctorates, from Yale and Dartmouth, and the National Medal of Arts.
Fitzgerald, however, had type II diabetes which had a massive impact on her life, causing vascular problems, congestive heart failure and eventually leg amputation. From the early 1970s, when Fitzgerald was in her 50s, she began to have vision problems from advanced diabetic retinopathy, leading to severe vision problems from her late 60s.

A shy woman, who was very sensitive to criticism, she spent her last years in the garden of her Beverly Hills mansion in a wheelchair with her son and granddaughter. “I just want to smell the air, listen to the birds and hear Alice laugh,” she said. She died, aged 79 in 1996.