Peg Entwistle

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Peg Entwistle

Peg Entwistle , nee Lilian Millicent Entwistle (born February 5, 1908 in Port Talbot , Wales , † September 16, 1932 in Los Angeles ) was a Welsh-born American actress who had a short career in Hollywood . She became known through her suicide . She threw herself off the letter " H " of the world-famous Hollywood sign in Los Angeles and thus became a symbol for the dark side of the Hollywood dream.

Life

Entwistle was the daughter of Robert Symes Entwistle and his wife Emily (née Stevenson). The couple divorced in 1910, and their father married a second time in 1914. His new wife, Lauretta-Amanda Ross, was the sister of his brother's wife, Harold Entwistle , his former sister-in-law. In March 1916 the family moved to New York by ship Philadelphia . Here the couple had two sons, Milton and Bobby. In 1921 her stepmother died of meningitis and her father was run over by a car on November 2, 1922 (the person who caused the accident was hit and miss) and succumbed to his injuries on December 19 of the same year. Peggy Entwistle then grew up with her two half-siblings with her uncle, Harold Entwistle, in Los Angeles, who brought her into connection with the genre as the manager of Hollywood actor Walter Hampden .

Peg Entwistle married the actor Robert Keith on April 18, 1927 . However, their marriage was divorced in May 1929.

Between 1925 and 1932, Entwistle played in a number of Broadway productions and received mostly good reviews. She returned from New York to Los Angeles because she got a job as a stage actress at the Belasco Theater . Here she was discovered by a representative of the RKO Studios and got her first role as Hazel Clay Cousins in the film Thirteen Women . The flick, a crude mixture of crime and horror film, was a flop; the producer David O. Selznick (who won the Oscar for Gone with the Wind in 1939 and 1940 and Rebecca was awarded) had to shorten his work from the original 74 to 59 minutes. Most of Peg Entwistle's role also fell victim to the cuts.

death

Entwistle left her uncle's house on Beachwood Drive on the evening of September 16, 1932 , supposedly to meet up with friends at the nearby drugstore. In fact, she went in the opposite direction through rough terrain to the Hollywood sign (at that time still "HOLLYWOODLAND") on Mount Lee . There she took off her shoes and her coat, which she carefully folded up, climbed the 15-meter-high letter H using the ladder on the back for maintenance work, and jumped to her death. Her body was found two days later following an anonymous phone call. The police discovered the following suicide note in their wallet: “I am afraid I am a coward. I am sorry for everything. If I had done this a long time ago, it would have saved a lot of pain. PE " (Translated: " I'm afraid I am a coward. I'm sorry for everything. Had I done this a long time ago, it would have saved a lot of pain. PE " ).

One of the Hollywood legends surrounding Peg Entwistle's death is that her uncle was said to have opened a letter to his niece two days later that was said to have been posted by the Beverly Hills Playhouse the day before her suicide . In it, she is said to have been made an offer for the lead role of a character who commits suicide at the end of the film. It is likely a made-up story as there is no evidence of the rumor anywhere.

Her funeral took place in Hollywood and her body was burned. The ashes of 24-year-old Peg Entwistle were later transferred to Glendale , Ohio and buried next to her father in Oak Hill Cemetery on January 5, 1933.

Filmography

Web links

Commons : Peg Entwistle  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ James Zenuk, Jr., Peg Entwistle and the Hollywood Sign Suicide, A Biography, 2014, e- ISBN 978-1-4766-0407-7
  2. ^ List or Manifest of Alien Passengers of SS Philadelphia. March 11, 1916.
  3. ↑ Torsten Meyer, Journey through the City of Angels, 2015, ISBN 978-3-7386-2083-2
  4. ↑ http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0258202/bio
  5. ↑ Torsten Meyer, Journey through the City of Angels, 2015, ISBN 978-3-7386-2083-2
  6. ↑ Torsten Meyer, Journey through the City of Angels, 2015, ISBN 978-3-7386-2083-2
  7. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of August 9, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  8. ^ Peg Entwistle in the Find a Grave database . Retrieved September 6, 2017.
personal data
SURNAME Entwistle, Peg
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Entwistle, Lilian Millicent (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Welsh American actress
DATE OF BIRTH February 5, 1908
PLACE OF BIRTH Port Talbot , Wales
DATE OF DEATH September 16, 1932
Place of death los Angeles