What Ever Happened to Baby Peggy: The Autobiography of Hollywood's Pioneer Child Star

by Diana Serra Cary

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.
In What Ever Happened to Baby Peggy? Diana Serra Cary (as Baby Peggy is now called) looks back over her incredible life as a child superstar. She reveals the awesome burdens she carried. Seen through her memories, the turbulent lives of child stars such as Gary Coleman, Michael Jackson, and Drew Barrymore make much more sense.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, Film, Media Tie In, History, Memoir

347 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 1996

About the author

Cary was born on October 29, 1918, in San Diego, California,as Peggy-Jean Montgomery, the second daughter of Marian (née Baxter) and Jack Montgomery. While some sources incorrectly give her birth name as Margaret, Cary herself, in her autobiography, notes that she was indeed born as Peggy-Jean.

Baby Peggy was "discovered" at the age of 19 months, when she visited Century Studios on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood with her mother and a film-extra friend.

The success of the Baby Peggy films brought her into prominence. When she was not filming, she embarked on extensive "In-Person" personal appearance tours across the country to promote her movies. She was also featured in several short skits on major stages in Los Angeles and New York, including Grauman's Million Dollar Theatre and the Hippodrome. Her likeness appeared on magazine covers and was used in advertisements for various businesses and charitable campaigns. She was also named the Official Mascot of the 1924 Democratic Convention in New York, and stood onstage waving a United States flag next to Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

While under contract with Century and Universal, Peggy commanded an impressive salary, but her parents didn't set aside any money for the future well being of Peggy or her sister, Louise. Through reckless spending of her parents, and corrupt business partners of her father, her entire fortune was gone before she hit puberty.

In her post acting years, Peggy married Gordon Ayres in 1938 and a few years later adopted the name Diana Ayres in an effort to distance herself from the Baby Peggy image. Working at the time as a writer for radio shows, she found that people who figured out her identity were more interested in her Baby Peggy persona than in her writing abilities. She later changed her name to Diana Serra Cary explaining, "After my divorce [from Gordon Ayres] and when I became a Catholic I took Serra as my confirmation name. When I married Bob [her second husband] I became Mrs. Cary."

Eventually, after years of emotional struggle and open derision from Hollywood insiders and the media,] Cary made peace with her Baby Peggy past. She had successful careers as a publisher, historian and author on Hollywood subjects, writing, among other works, an autobiography of her life as a child star, What Ever Happened to Baby Peggy: The Autobiography of Hollywood's Pioneer Child Star, and a biography of her contemporary and rival, Jackie Coogan: The World's Boy King: A Biography of Hollywood's Legendary Child Star.

As an adult, Cary worked on numerous books about the early film industry, Hollywood cowboys and harsh working conditions for child stars in Hollywood. At the end of her own autobiography, she recounts the fates of numerous child stars, including Judy Garland and Shirley Temple. She also advocated for reforms in child performer protection laws as a member of the organization A Minor Consideration.

Cary appeared in numerous television documentaries and interviews about her work, and she made guest appearances at silent film festivals. At the age of 99, Cary self-published her first novel, The Drowning of the Moon.

Cary & her second husband had one son, Mark. They remained married until Cary's death in 2001. She lived in Gustine, California, near Modesto for many years.

Cary died at her home in Gustine on February 24, 2020, at the age of 101.

abridged from Wikipedia

Reviews

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

At 100 years old, Diana Serra Cary ("Baby Peggy") is now the last living silent star. She's also an accomplished author and historian.

This is fascinating, not just for the portrait of Hollywood from its beginning and vaudeville to its end. Diana, herself, is remarkable. Her perseverance, her discipline, her quiet dignity, her commitment to ideals made all the more courageous by an unflinching realism. This isn't your typical Hollywood story. But in a way, it is. It's the Hollywood story and a uniquely American story. So much has changed...and so much echoes through time.

Update: Diana died at home on February 24, 2020. She was 101 years old.

[Wendy'sThoughts · Rating 4 out of 5]

True Confessions: I Have Not Read This Book But I did find out about this amazing woman through an article about a new HBO documentary, Showbiz Kids.

As someone who is interested in all sorts of things, I love documentaries. Due to past personal history in the industry many, many, I Mean many years ago, I would naturally be interested in this one.

So, like when I was crazy about Mindhunter (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...) I went to the book and wrote a review to encourage others to watch the show.

I gather there are a few articles about this new doc but the one that I first saw was tilted towards, Baby Peggy. I knew nothing about her and was fascinated. The life she experienced, the way her family took advantage as well as the people in charge of her all...all of it so tell. The woman rose up after so much, she is someone to be admired.

I put the article from refinery29.com
below as well as the trailer for Showbiz Kids. I will be watching the movie tonight.

The Troubling Tale of Baby Peggy, Hollywood’s First Child Star
https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2020...

Showbiz Kids (2020): Official Trailer | HBO
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLuoI...

Whatever Happened to Baby Peggy: The Autobiography of Hollywood's Pioneer Child Star
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...


For more Reviews, Free E-books and Giveaways

[Nikki Stafford · Rating 5 out of 5]

I truly wish I could double the stars on this one. My last book of 2014, and it was phenomenal. A couple of months ago I watched a silent film called Captain January on TCM, along with a documentary that followed called "The Elephant in the Room." It was about the first child star, Baby Peggy, someone with whom I wasn't familiar despite the number of silent films I've watched. The documentary was fascinating, and Peggy Montgomery — who has since changed her name to Diana Serra Cary — provided much of the primary material. With her first major appearance at the ripe old age of 18 months in 1920, she is the very first child star, one who rose to such massive fame by the time she was four years old that audiences everywhere adored her, and her workday was not only several hours of filming, but doing ads and appearances. When she received an astronomical contract for $1.5 mil per year for three films, her father turned her gargantuan fortune over to his stepfather, whom he hated but whom he thought might see the gesture as an olive branch. Instead, good old Granddad made off with her millions, she lost the contract, she became blackballed in Hollywood, and after being worked to the bone she was perceived as a has-been by the time most kids hadn't even entered school. And that's just the beginning of the story. What happens next is unbelievable. Her parents come off as emotional toddlers, and the actual toddler the breadwinner, security blanket, and the only means of support this family has. (Her older sister, who is dragged around in Baby Peggy's shadow, is as much a tragic figure as Peggy herself.) While the documentary was good, the book is amazing. I'm a huge fan of 1920s Hollywood and the perceived glamour of it all, and Cary is able to provide a first-person viewpoint of the studio system, star system, what the theatres were like, what the sets were like, crew people, and, in one of the best chapters, what the world of vaudeville was like before and after the talkies came in. I adored this book, and wish it had been 10 times as long as it is. Cary is a remarkable woman, the last living silent film star (she's 96 now). When she was finally able to break free from Hollywood, she became a writer, and she's a brilliant one who will keep you spellbound page after page. While her other books are out of print, I will be hunting them down just to devour more of this world from her deft pen. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. My favourite non-fiction book of the year.

[Leslie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Who would want to be a child star? (who would want to be a celebrity of any kind, actually, because the hunger for fame is something I've never really understood) And who would want his/her own child to be a child star? It seems disastrous all round. Anyone who devotes themselves to turning a child into a star (whether in films or music or dance or on stage or on the kiddie pageant circuit) is a self-serving narcissist in my books, no matter what high-minded or disingenuous justifications they offer. Baby Peggy was an enormous star in the early '20s, beginning in films when she was only nineteen months old. When her father had managed to alienate every studio head in Hollywood, he took Peggy, still only about 7, into vaudeville. By the time she was 10, vaudeville was dying and she was a has-been. Her parents--childish, selfish, and controlling--blew all the millions she had earned and spent years after that trying to assert their control over her and resurrect the goose that laid the golden egg they had gotten used to living on. They may have resented being Mr and Mrs Baby Peggy (her father in particular), but they were also unable to imagine themselves without that reflected glory (not to mention that steady stream of money). Her father was a controlling asshole and her mother a selfish and shallow woman (though Cary is very generous in her assessment of both of them, especially her helpless mother), and both of them never stopped being emotional children. While they lived life as egotistical children, she was the family breadwinner and most responsible adult from the age of about 2. Messed up situation all round. After years trying to figure out who she was when she wasn't being Baby Peggy and crushing money troubles resulting from her parents' irresponsibility and carelessness, she matured into a successful writer and a happy functioning adult. When she is pressured to put her young son into show business, the idea of doing that to her child horrifies her, and who could blame her? It should horrify any parent.

[Stephanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the best celebrity autobiographies I've ever read. It's the story of Diana Serra Cary, a.k.a. "Baby Peggy," who was one of the biggest child stars of the silent movie era. Any film historian would greatly benefit from reading this book, which powerfully evokes a time when small movie studios were akin to circuses: filled with scrappy vaudevillians who worked their pants off to eke out a meager living.

Cary's move from Century to Universal is fascinating. Century was just a ragtag, do-it-yourself operation, while Universal was a well-oiled machine that catered to its stars' every desire.

By the time Cary turns 10, she's a has-been. Her opportunistic parents grow angry and sullen, blaming her for not being able to support the family in the way they've become accustomed. Hearing her accounts of working on the vaudeville circuit were heart-wrenching...this little girl worked long, grueling hours so that her family could eat, and when she didn't deliver the goods, she was treated like garbage.

Needless to say, Cary grew to resent her Baby Peggy persona, which eclipsed her subsequent achievements as a teen and young woman. Finally, after years of struggle, the author carved out a name for herself as a successful writer. How she stayed sane through all of the drama is beyond me, but I admire her enormously for it.

Cary deserves tremendous praise for her writing talent. Her descriptions and insights made fascinating reading. The fact that she can add writing to her long list of talents (acting, singing, and dancing) is impressive, to say the least. I wish TCM would do an hour-long interview with Cary. Her insights to Hollywood are pure gold and should be preserved on the medium that made her famous.

[Susan Molloy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an entertaining look into the life of Baby Peggy, child star of the silent movies. Born Peggy Montgomery in 1918, her parents led her into movies through their connections (mostly via her father), whereby because of her discipline and charm, she became a big movie star. She also starred in many movies with Brownie the Wonder Dog. Her fame was buttressed by products “everything Baby Peggy” – dolls, jewelry, songs, et cetera, a precursor to Shirley Temple in the 1930s.

And work her they did:
”My workday—six days a week—began shortly after seven-thirty every morning . . . my dressing room, about eight by ten feet, was little more than an oversize crate put together with green lumber. An iron rod in one corner served as both closet and clothes rack. A prewar army cot, with its rock-hard stretched canvas surface, was my bed, not a luxury but a necessity demanded by the California child labor laws for a working child's daily nap. (Luckily I was never given time to take a nap, so I never had to use it!)”

She was viewed and used as a commodity, someone who was a meal ticket, a character, someone that too many believed she would always be. Her first husband revealed this in their marriage:

. . . one night a consoling thought came into my head. I shook Gordon gently to waken him. ‘Dear,’ I said softly, ‘maybe we should try to have a baby, now that we're settled here . . . ?’ Like many confused young wives, I thought babies were the mortar that put shaky marriages back together. His reply astounded me. ‘My God, no! Having a child would destroy you!’ He was as vehement as though I'd threatened to cut off an arm. ‘If you ever became a mother, you'd stop being Baby Peggy!’

To further reveal what a cad her first husband was, Cary wrote this after she and he were reunited after his very long on-the-road stint:

”On the third day following his return, and after we had resumed living together, he said he had something of great importance to tell me. ‘I really didn't plan to stay,’ he began offhandedly as we strolled the cypress-edged sea cliffs of Carmel. Suddenly he stopped in midstride. ‘I only came back to get a divorce.’ I was speechless, aghast at his nerve. ‘You see, I met this wonderful girl at an Arthur Murray Studio in New York. We formed a dance team and booked our act into the best hotels in the Catskills—‘”

They divorced.

Cary started afresh, and further shook off her past fame:

.” . .following my own protective instincts and Father Gracian's prudent advice, I never told my new friends about my movie past. Most saw me only as a ‘good Catholic girl’”

She met her second husband, Bob Cary, and they married into a lasting and happy marriage in the spring of 1954.

This passage from her book struck me as right on the money:

”In watching American television, I was able to observe the vast changes the medium had wrought with the traditional movie child's image. In my day a child star was expected to be distinctive and perform heroic deeds, thereby serving as a role model for youngsters in the audience. At four, I bravely climbed the lighthouse stairs and lit the beacon to guide passing ships clear of the reef. In ‘How Green Was My Valley’, eleven-year-old Roddy McDowall risked his life to save his father, actor Donald Crisp, in a gripping dramatic scene. The new TV youngsters dressed in look-alike T-shirts, shorts, and sneakers and bore a cookie-cutter likeness to each other. In soaps their role was to induce tears, but in sitcoms they were expected to get laughs by delivering wicked one-liners considerably too wise for their years. And when they grew too old, they were replaced by look-alike successors, much as the aging casts of Our Gang had, over the years, been replaced with reasonably accurate facsimiles of their predecessors.”

When Cary was working on her history book Hollywood's Children: An Inside Account of the Child Star Era, she wrote about looking for and finding former child stars and what Fate brought them. This passage about Charlotte Henry was interesting:

” I searched for and, after many months, finally found Charlotte Henry, who played the lead in ‘Growing Pains’ and starred in the classic 1934 film version of ‘Alice in Wonderland’. In a sense I resurrected and gave her back to what she was amazed to find were her many loyal and devoted fans. Badly wounded by her Hollywood experience, she had become almost a recluse, dropping out of sight for nearly forty years. Over lunch she told me that her debut film, far from launching her career, had in fact destroyed it. Even at sixteen I knew her as a recognized stage actress of great talent, experience, and promise. But she was so typecast as Alice, no studio could imagine her playing any other role. Her license plate gave mute testimony to the strange alpha and omega of her acting career: across it was spelled out one word: ECILA, or ALICE spelled backwards. Richard Lamparski came to San Diego to interview her, and by including her in one of his ‘Whatever Became of . . .?’ series, brought her renewed recognition and many letters from her fans.’

Sadly, by the time Cary was an adult, the film industry pushed her out, but happily she turned her life to painting, writing, and changing her name to Diana to shake off her past fame. In her autobiography, she relates many happy stories of nice fellow actors and actresses, including child stars, but evenly shows the heartaches she encountered.

She passed away in 2020, at the age of 101.

Cary wrote with a smoothness and frankness that is refreshing, and devoid of the super ego so prevalent among some great stars and the great-stars-in-their-own-minds. What is striking is her honestly about her devoted belief in God and conversion to Catholicism.

💥 Recommended.
Also recommended is Cary's book, The Hollywood Posse: The Story of a Gallant Band of Horsemen Who Made Movie History.
Hollywoods Children: An Inside Account of the Child Star Era
🟣

[JoAnne McMaster (Any Good Book) · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Marianne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, this was a dismal tale from beginning almost 'til the very end. Author Diana Serra Cary is a capable writer and tells the story of her life as a child actor in Hollywood during the silent era and early talkies. Not only do her ignorant, scheming parents exploit her during her entire childhood and even into her 20s, nearly every person they encounter along the way takes advantage of them so that, of the millions of dollars made by Baby Peggy, none of it remains or is recaptured at any point in their lives. The family struggles from cover to cover to make ends meet and is forever beholden to the few charitable people they befriend.

Author Cary has many interesting anecdotal stories to tell about early movie-making but I'm not sure how accurate her memory could've been given the events happened when she was a toddler. For example, the horrific story of Joe Martin the famous orangutan actor, whose handler pulled out every one of his teeth after he bit an actress, and his subsequent death is told very differently on Wikipedia (not that Wikipedia is the most credible source) but it threw into suspicion almost everything else Cary had to say. And given the dreary Dickensian atmosphere she gives her life, I often found myself asking, "How can anyone be this ignorant? This awful?" I do, at least, have to give her credit for her resilience if, indeed, things were as bad as she describes.

The only somewhat bright spot, and she simply mentions it without much commentary, is her adult conversion to Catholicism. After that, it seemed, her life simmered down to something a little more normal, although she and her husband were still taken advantage of by a guy who took a bunch of her husband's art to sell on commission and was never heard from again.

So, a cautionary tale to greedy, foolish parents of cute children everywhere, and I believe that is what Cary hoped for in this miserable book -- do not put your children into the meat-grinder of the entertainment industry. For the vast majority of them, it will not end well, not for them as children, not for them as adults, and just as often, not for their entire family. I don't think I'll be reading this one again.

[Mick Meyers · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book gives an account diana carys life during the fledgling start of cinema.as with many child stars was thrust into the limelight by her parents who in turn used her to finance there own lives with disregard for her financial welfare later in life.her parents especially her father came across as a momma rose figure from the film gypsy,gaining fame via his daughter.as with all child stars they grow up with differing problems the main one being they grow up.after an eventful life carrying her family and first husband,she has now found a good second career as well as a truly deserved revival of her screen achievements.anybody looking for salacious material look elsewhere,this as it says in the book no gossip,sex or rumour she had not been part to.

[Stephanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Honestly one of the most interesting books I have ever read. The author is such a beautiful story teller of factual historical entertainment history. She has no agenda except to present her own personal story and masterfully giving the reader insight into how she navigated and became the adult person she was meant to be.
*I will be reading her 2 other books and looking for the documentary that is narrated by Roddy McDowall.
*I purchased this book in hardcover because I would like to read it and share it with friends.
*The photo inserts are many rare pictures of stills from movies of hers that were destroyed, as well as her classmate, eleven year old, Frances Gumm (Judy Garland) performing for the students.

[NJB · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating look at the beginning era of film & the exploitation of child actors by their parents.

[Annika · Rating 4 out of 5]

absolutely fascinating

[Entapizador · Rating 5 out of 5]

Es una maravilla de libro y una maravilla de autobiografía.

[Lori · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this book after I watched a documentary On "baby Peggy" I found out that she is now known as Diana Serra Cary. and she wrote an autobiography. I was glad I got the chance to read this book. she is very honest about the tough life she had as a child star, over her childhood she made almost two million dollars and ended up with none of that money. thanks to her parents and other relatives who blew the money. very upsetting to think she was the bread winner for her family since she was 19 months old. she took her book from the time she was baby star up through the 1990s. she also wrote some other books about child stars such as Jackie Coogan. her life was a tough one. ending up destitute after earning all that money. this was a good read. glad she at least had a happy ending with a happy marriage and a child at 43 years old. as of this writing she is still going strong at 94 years old.!! I even had a chance to watch a couple of her Baby Peggy shorts on the computer and tv.

[Bill · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book tells the story of Hollywood's first child star and what befell her. Her life is a harrowing dead broke romp from child star to vaudeville, to Hollywood extra to Mexico and finally to author where she finally finds a voice. Well work reading.

[amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had never heard of her until I read this book. The sad tale of an early Hollywood child star.

[Meta]

I heard this women speak at the San Francisco Public Library. It is an amazing story and speaks to the conditions of the time period in regards to treatment of children.

[Hala Pickford · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is also my bible.

Devastating but touching and hopeful. This woman has been to hell and back and she's beyond magnificent! Great for those even vaguely interested in silent film.

[Katherine · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love silent film history and this is when of the best written books on the subject and from the first child star of the cinema whose memory recall is incredibly detailed

[Karen]

After researching silent films, this popped up and looked interesting.