Jackie Cain was born on May 22, 1928 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA. She was married to Roy Kral. She died on September 15, 2014 in Montclair, New Jersey, USA.
At age 14, she summoned the courage to ask a visiting bandleader if she could sing with his group. They asked her to sing at every show.
She began singing professionally in Chicago. One night, a friend invited her to sit in with a quartet at a club. The band's pianist was Roy Kral. They teamed up and rose to initial fame as vocalists with bebop saxophonist Charlie Ventura and his band in the late 1940s.
Her father, a furniture salesman who also managed a community theater, included her in an amateur show when she was about 6.