Baby Peggy, Child Star of Silent Films, Dies at 101
She was number 223 on the list.
Before Shirley Temple, she was the young queen of Hollywood,
earning $1 million a year, but her movie career did not last long.
Diana Serra Cary, the silent film sensation known as Baby
Peggy whose career in Hollywood came to a crashing halt when she was the ripe
old age of six, has died. She was 101.
Cary, who from 1921 through 1924 appeared in as many as 150
short films and a handful of popular features, died Monday in Gustine,
California, according to Rena Kiehn of the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum.
Without uttering a word onscreen, the emotive child actress
with the distinctive bob haircut starred as Little Red Riding Hood in 1922 in a
short film of the same name and in Hansel and Gretel (1923) in another short;
took part in a bullfight in Carmen Jr. (1924); escaped from a burning building
in The Darling of New York (1923); and ran a lighthouse in the heart-tugging
Captain January (1924).
Most of her films have been lost; many were destroyed in a
raging fire that consumed the old Century Film Co. studios in 1926.
Her father was Jack Montgomery, a cowboy who brought the
family to Hollywood from San Diego when he heard the film industry was in need
of horse-riding stuntmen. When his wife took their two daughters to the Century
lot on Sunset Boulevard, 19-month-old Peggy-Jean Montgomery was “discovered” by
a director who was looking for a tot to pair with the canine star Brownie the
Wonder Dog.
Montgomery got his daughter a deal to do a film for $7.50 a
day — just what he was making for doubling for Western star Tom Mix — and she
appeared with the terrier in the 1921 shorts Playmates, Brownie’s Little Venus
and Brownie’s Baby Doll.
Her career really soared after she starting working with
director Alfred J. Goulding.
“He had been a child actor. No wonder I loved him,” she
recalled in a 2011 interview with the Los Angeles Times. “He had all kinds of
knowledge about how to work with children. In one film [1923’s The Kid
Reporter], I played a reporter, and he said you are going to have to wear a
monocle in one eye and you have to learn how to wear it. It was quite a trick.
He worked so patiently with me. That year we worked together we turned out the
best comedies.”
In the Universal feature The Darling of New York, her
character has to escape from a burning room (the prop men had doused the set
with real kerosene), and the kid faced real danger when a storm hit during the
filming of Captain January. (That movie was remade in 1936, with Shirley Temple
as the star.)
After some screenings of her films, Baby Peggy would work on
stage and treat the audience to a few jokes. Gimbels modeled a doll after her,
and she appeared at the 1924 Democratic Convention in New York alongside
Franklin D. Roosevelt.
She later said that she was making $1 million a year and
worth $4 million at age 10 — but her parents weren’t saving any of her
earnings.
“They had a house in Beverly Hills before I was 3,” she told
the Times. “Then we had a house in Laurel Canyon. Then we had a Duesenberg car
that was $30,000. … But they thought Hollywood was forever.”
However, when her disciplinarian father quarreled one too
many times with producers, Baby Peggy was blackballed in Hollywood. Then, she
said, a relative who was involved with her production company stole all their
money, leaving the family destitute.
She tried to keep her career going in vaudeville and then
returned to Hollywood. But with the talkies now in fashion, the studios were
not interested in a silent-film actress, and she was only an extra in her last
film, Having Wonderful Time (1938).
Her father, meanwhile, went back to stunt work, and she
married actor Gordon Ayres. They divorced after a decade, and she became a book
buyer for the University of California. Later, she gave herself the new name
Diana Serra, remarried and worked as a magazine writer and journalist.
In the 1970s, Cary wrote books about early cowboy films and
former Hollywood child stars. Her autobiography, Whatever Happened to Baby
Peggy?, was published in 1996, and she was the subject of a 2012 documentary,
Baby Peggy, the Elephant in the Room, directed by Vera Iwerebor.
The Motion Picture & Television Fund Country Home
offered her a room, but she decided to stay to remain in Gustine. Hollywood is
"not my cup of tea," she told The Hollywood Reporter in February
2015.
Survivors include her son, Mark, and granddaughter,
Stephanie. Her husband of 48 years, artist Robert Cary, died in 2003, and her
sister, Louise, died in 2005.
"I am proud of how she was able to come to terms with
what happened to her from when she was just a toddler and re-create her life
anew," her son said in a statement. "She learned to love herself and
her unusual childhood so she could focus on telling her story to educate others
in how to avoid the same negative things that she had experienced in her life
and career as Baby Peggy."
A memorial will take place within the next few months at the
Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum in Fremont, California. In lieu of flowers,
the family requests contributions to be made to a GoFundMe account to help
cover outstanding medical expenses.
Filmography
Short subject Year Title
Role Notes
1921 Her Circus
Man
1921 On with the
Show
1921 The Kid's Pal
1921 Playmates Credited as Peggy
Montgomery
1921 On Account
1921 Pals
1921 Third Class
Male
1921 The Clean Up
1921 Golfing
1921 Brownie's
Little Venus
1921 A Week Off
1921 Brownie's
Baby Doll
1921 Sea Shore
Shapes
1921 A Muddy Bride
1921 Teddy's Goat
1921 Get-Rich-Quick
Peggy
1921 Chums
1922 The
Straphanger Unconfirmed
1922 Circus Clowns
1922 The Little
Rascal
1922 Fools First Little girl
1922 Little Red
Riding Hood Little Red Riding Hood
1923 Peg o' the
Movies Peg
1923 Sweetie
1923 The Kid
Reporter Peggy
1923 Taking Orders
1923 Nobody's
Darling
1923 Tips
1923 Little Miss
Hollywood Little Miss Hollywood
1923 Miles of
Smiles The Twins (Dual role)
1924 Our Pet
1924 The Flower
Girl
1924 Stepping Some
1924 Poor Kid
1923 Hansel and
Gretel
1924 Jack and the
Beanstalk
1924 Such Is Life
1924 Peg o' the
Mounted
Features Year Title
Role Notes
1921 Fool's
Paradise Child Uncredited
1922 Little Miss
Mischief
1922 Penrod Baby Rennsdale Credited
as Peggy Jane
1922 Peggy,
Behave! Peggy
1923 Hollywood Herself (cameo) Lost film
1923 Carmen, Jr.
1923 The Darling
of New York Santussa Credited as Baby Peggy Montgomery
1924 The Law
Forbids Peggy
1924 Captain
January Captain January
1924 The Family
Secret Peggy Holmes
1924 Helen's
Babies Toodie
1926 April Fool Irma Goodman
1926 The Dangerous
Dub Rose Cooper
1926 Prisoners of
the Storm Joan Le Grande
1932 Off His Base Peggy Credited
as Peggy Montgomery
1934 Eight Girls
in a Boat Hortense Credited as Peggy Montgomery
1934 The Return of
Chandu Judy Allen, party guest Uncredited
1935 Ah,
Wilderness! Schoolgirl at
graduation Uncredited
1936 Girls'
Dormitory Schoolgirl Credited as Peggy Montgomery
1937 Souls at Sea Bit Role Uncredited
1937 True
Confession Autograph Hunter Uncredited
1938 Having
Wonderful Time Extra Uncredited
Alternative title: Having a Wonderful Time
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