Whatever Happened To Baby Peggy?

The Autobiography of Hollywood's Pioneer Child Star

Author:    Diana Serra Cary

Genre:     Autobiography/Nonfiction

Hardcover; Digital Book

ISBN #:    9780312147600

First Edition

552 Pages

$29.88; $9.99 Amazon

August 26, 2016

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Long before Shirley Temple's curls bounced their way into America's heart, Baby Peggy lit up marquee from coast to coast.  She was the original child star produced by Hollywood and her amazing journey set the pattern for all those who followed.

Discovered when she was only nineteen months old, Baby Peggy with her angelic face and expert mugging for the camera entertained audiences across the nation and around the world.  She starred in a series of short two-reel comedies, completing 150 of them by the time she turned three.  By her fifth birthday, Baby Peggy's films were earning as much as Charlie Chaplin's, and she herself was a millionaire, having signed a three-film $3.5 million contract.

Establishing a disgraceful tradition for the parents of child performers, Baby Peggy's mother and father, emotional children themselves, squandered her fortune.

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Long before there was superstar child actress Shirley Temple, there was one that came before her, almost a hundred years ago.  Her name was Baby Peggy, and she made 150 films for various movie studios.  However, unlike Shirley Temple, who always played her age in films (and what endeared her to millions of viewers), Baby Peggy often played "grownups"; she would act in films that portrayed her as a miniature person, complete with period dress.

Which is not to say millions didn't adore her also; they did.  But I am saying that you cannot compare the two in regard to movies.  They were very different, and many other child actors have come and gone along the way.

I had never heard of Baby Peggy, but I wanted to know more about her.  I love classic films and own thousands of them.  But I own not as many silent films, which is what this little girl made.  Sadly, most of her films have been destroyed, and I have only been able to see Captain January, which is one of her final ones.  She did have acting ability, and it was because, according to her own writing, she could take direction and basically film anything in one take.

Having said that, I will say that this book was rather depressing to me.  Beginning acting at nineteen months, her father became her manager and she wasn't allowed to have a childhood.  Her older sister, Louise, was denied things that Peggy was denied, for that reason alone.  This caused a rift between the sisters that lasted until later adulthood.

Her father was a spendthrift, and the minute he realized Peggy could support them, he quit his own job (such as it was) and refused to allow his wife to have anything to do with Peggy's making movies.  He spent the money quickly, and unfortunately, allowed someone to manage some of it who had no business doing so in the first place.

Without child protection laws in place (which were added because of child actor Jackie Coogan and his actions), they could do what they wanted with her money, which they promptly did.  It appears Peggy did not have a very happy life, and in later years changed her name to Diana.

She did have a happy second marriage, which was a good thing, but reading this I felt that it was more cathartic for this late little actress, and that life could have treated her better.

https://www.amazon.com/What-Ever-Happened-Baby-Peggy/dp/0312147600/ref

Goodreads:    https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/7599851313

More on Diana Serra Cary's Books:    https://www.amazon.com/stores/Diana-Serra-Cary/author/B001HN15H6?ref

Harold: The Boy Who Became Mark Twain

Author:  Hal Holbrook
Genre:  Biographies

Hardcover; Paperback; Digital Book
ISBN #:  9780374281014; 9780374533595
Macmillan
480 Pages
Various Prices; $7.99 Amazon
September 13, 2011

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Harold is the actor Hal Holbrook's personal memoir about his struggle to discover his true self, even as he learned to transform himself onstage.  Abandoned at two by his mother and father, Holbrook commenced an unlikely and engrossing journey.  He spent his childhood at boarding schools and Culver Military Academy, and began acting almost by accident.  Through the army, marriage, college, and working to learn his craft, his fearlessness in the face of risk spurred the realization that success as an actor was his birthright.  The climb up that forbidding mountain was a lonely one.  And the toll of his achievement - the cost to his wife and children and to his own conscience - is the dark side of fame he would eventually earn by portraying the man his career would forever be most closely associated with:  Mark Twain.

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I will admit that I lost interest in this book almost immediately as it is filled with endless detail upon detail of things most people aren't really interested in (and I'm not one to be interested in 'tell all' books, so even that would be better.  It's more 'I went here, spent that' type of detail).  However, I've read enough to know that this isn't a biography in the true sense of the word.  I'm not saying it's a bad book; not at all.  It's just boring as far as autobiographies go.

The book, to me, appears to be written only to assuage Mr. Holbrook's guilt over his first marriage and the two children from that union.  It starts with his birth and centers on the beginnings of his career and ends with his performing his one-man show Mark Twain and finally makes a name for himself.  There were so many years after this, both on the stage, in television, and even film that followed; yet this book touches on none of that.

The other main focus is his first marriage to Ruby which produced two children, Victoria and David.  There is no mention of his second marriage - which produced a daughter, Eve; nor of his final - and lasting - marriage to actress Dixie Carter.  By reading it, you would think that after he topped his career with Twain, no other role came his way.

On the contrary, he continued to act for many more years with distinctive roles.  He has even been nominated for an Academy Award.  But we are to learn none of that.  Since it has been at least seven years since this book was written, it's not as if he hasn't been able to continue his story.  But it seems he doesn't want us to know anything else about his life.

In the end, I get the feeling that this book was written more as an apology to his first family - Ruby and his children by that marriage - than out of any need to tell the story of his life (which again, has much more to it thus far).  While I have no doubt he has regrets about his first marriage and his children, I believe that it might have been better if he had just sat them down and explained his reasoning to them instead of taking the reader on that journey with him in order to justify his actions in being an absent father.  After all, and I say this without judgment to those who think otherwise, being deprived of his own parents should have at least taught him the benefit of being around his own offspring, but apparently it didn't.

https://www.amazon.com/Harold-Boy-Became-Mark-Twain/dp/0374281017/ref

Goodreads:  https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2540961019