Via the Associated Press:

A singer-songwriter who topped the charts in 1963 with her epic song of teenage angst “It’s My Party” and followed it up with the hits “Judy’s Turn to Cry” and “You Don’t Own Me” has died. Lesley Gore was 68. According to her partner of 33 years, Gore died Monday of cancer at New York-Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan. Brooklyn-born and New Jersey-raised, Gore was discovered by Quincy Jones as a teenager and signed to Mercury Records. Gore’s other hits include “She’s A Fool,” “That’s the Way Boys Are” and “Maybe I Know.”

Leslie Gore also composed songs for the soundtrack of the 1980 film Fame, for which she received an Academy Award nomination for “Out Here on My Own”, written with her brother Michael. Michael won the Academy Award for Best Original Song for the theme song of the same film.

In 2005, Gore recorded Ever Since (her first album of new material since Love Me By Name in 1976), with producer/songwriter Blake Morgan, for the small independent label Engine Company Records. In addition to extensive national radio coverage and critical acclaim from The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Billboard Magazine, and other national press, three songs from Ever Since have been used in television shows and films: “Better Angels”, in CSI: Miami’s fourth season premiere episode; “Words We Don’t Say”, in an episode of The L Word; and “It’s Gone”, in the Jeff Lipsky-directed film Flannel Pajamas.

Beginning in 2004, Leslie Gore hosted the PBS television series In the Life, which focused on LGBT issues and in a 2005 interview abnnounced that she was a lesbian. Gore had been living with her partner for more than 23 years.

Leslie Gore passed away today Monday, February 16, 2015 at the New York-Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan, New York City of cancer

Lesley Gore- “You Don’t Own Me” Live (1964)