Peggy O'Neil

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Peggy O'Neil, 1920

Peggy O'Neil (* according to own information June 16, 1898 in Gneeveguilla ( County Kerry , Ireland ); † January 7, 1960 in London ) was an Irish-American actress of vaudeville .

childhood

Her family emigrated from Ireland to Canada at the turn of the century , but shortly afterwards they moved to Rochester in the US state of New York . It is unclear whether Peggy, who at that time still had her maiden name Margeret, was really born in Ireland, as she always claimed for herself ("I am Irish - impulse rather than reason guided me") or only in Buffalo near Rochester, is unclear. Peggy O'Neil was educated in a convent school of the Loreto Sisters and later transferred to a local high school. At the age of nine, his father Frederick died in a train accident and was followed for three years by her mother, Mary Buckley O'Neill. Peggy came into the care of local relatives. An uncle named Charlie Zimmermann , a music director, promoted her artistic talent and placed her in theater choirs. He also mediated her as a choir singer in the play "The Sweetest Girl in Paris", which was performed in 1910 in Chicago's " La Salle Theater ".

Career

In 1919, when a turning point in her career came, she had already successfully demonstrated her acting talent in several plays on American stages. A “particularly Irish actress with red hair” was sought for a London play. The theater maker Robert Courtneidge, who traveled to the USA especially for this purpose, met Peggy O'Neil. She then went to London to rehearse the role of Paddy in the play "Paddy the Next Best Thing" by Gertrude Page (1872-1922). She fell in love with the city and made the decision to spend the rest of her life there. To this end, after initially long correspondence, she broke off her engagement to the US millionaire Joe Moran, which she entered into before she left for Europe. In the following years she was a welcome guest on English-speaking stages.

In October 1920, it became known that she had been assassinated. A chocolate present contained the poisons arsenic and strychnine . She survived the attack, but her dog, which she let nibble on, died. A perpetrator could never be identified.

In the autumn of 1928, at the National Radio Exhibition taking place in the London Olympic Exhibition Center, she became acquainted with a new technology, the mechanical television set by the inventor John Logie Baird . At the booth she was asked to be recorded along with other singers with some Irish songs. This helped the new medium to gain additional popularity. She was also the first person ever to be interviewed on television. The conversation took place in April 1930 on the occasion of the Ideal Home Exhibition in Southampton . She was already present on the screen in small supporting roles since 1913 and appeared in 23 films, including short films, up until 1938. So in Auf Messers Schneide (1946) , Let's Dance (1950) and in Johanna von Orleans (1948) she doubled the well- equipped Ingrid Bergman .

She also tried herself as a painter and in 1938 presented three oil paintings to the public (Wertheim Gallery, Burlington Gardens ).

However, the 1930s strained O'Neil financially and physically. In 1935 she had to declare her bankruptcy . She named inexperience and carelessness as the cause.

Last years and death

From the mid-1940s she was increasingly plagued by arthritic pain, which soon meant that she could hardly leave her home and was dependent on a wheelchair. She died impoverished of heart failure on January 7, 1960 at Middlesex Hospital . She was laid to rest in the St Pancras cemetery . A charity for actors ("Actors Benevolent Fund") paid for the funeral. However, there is no tombstone. which points to the grave. The actress has been almost forgotten today.

Miss Peggy O'Neil remained unmarried and had no children.

Peggy O'Neil, the song

In 1921, Harry Pease , Ed. G. Nelson and Gilbert Dodge the popular waltz Peggy O'Neil (" Peggy O'Neill is a girl who could steal any heart, anywhere ... ") and published it with Leo Feist . The song became very popular, covered several times and played to this day.

theatre

United States

  • 1910: The Sweetest Girl in Paris ( La Salle Theater , Chicago), as a child-like chorister
  • 1914: Peg O'My Heart (she was selected in a casting of 400 young applicants)
  • 1916: The Flame (Lyric Theater, Broadway )
  • 1918: Patsy on the Wing (in Chicago)
  • 1919: Tumble
  • 1927: Ziegfeld Follies (in New Amsterdam Theater )

Europe

  • 1920: Paddy The Next Best Thing (at the Savoy Theater , London), leading role
  • 1922: Kippers and Kings (at the Theater Royal (Dublin))
  • 1924: The Little Minister (by JM Barrie )
  • 1924: What Every Woman Knows (ditto)
  • 1925: Mercenary Mary (by William B. Friedlander) (in the Hippodrome, London)
  • 1928: The Flying Squad (by Edgar Wallace ; in the Lyceum Theater (London) )
  • The Sea Urchin (at the Gaiety Theater (Dublin) )
  • 1929: Paddy The Next Best Thing, Revival (at the Garrick Theater (London) )
  • 1930: The Bachelor Father (ditto)
  • 1930: When Dreams come True (at Olympia Theater, London)
  • 1030: When Dreams come True (at the Theater Royal (Birmingham) ), running time one week (poster, page 149)
  • 1930: When Dreams come True (at Dublin's Gaiety Theater)
  • 1931: Sisters, a Drama of Laughter, Tears and Romance
  • 1934: No Surrender (at the Theater Royal, Brighton)
  • Late 1930s: Meet my Wife
  • 1943: They Gave Him a Gun (at the Theater Royal, Brighton), war drama
  • 1943: Tainted Gods (City Varieties Music Hall, Leeds )

Movie

Small supporting roles in:

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Janet Murphy: The Girl from Gneeveguilla in the Google book search
  2. ^ Theater poster "The Sweetest Girl of Paris" 1910
  3. ↑ Newspaper article in the Irish Independent of August 18, 1919
  4. ↑ "Poisoned Chocolade Drops for Peggy O'Neil" from Washington Post, December 5, 1920
  5. ^ RF Tiltman, "The entertainment value of television today", November 1928. Reference: References in the book "Early Television: A Bibliographic Guide to 1940" by George Shiers, Routledge, 1997, 640 pages in the Google book search
  6. ↑ Cover of the sheet of music
  7. ↑ Don Tyler: Hit Songs, 1900-1955: American Popular Music of the Pre-Rock Era . Jefferson, North Carolina & London, McFarland, 2007, p. 120
  8. ↑ That's Peggy O'Neil , fan blog from 2013
personal data
SURNAME O'Neil, Peggy
ALTERNATIVE NAMES O'Neill, Margaret (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Irish-American actress
DATE OF BIRTH June 16, 1898
PLACE OF BIRTH Gneeveguilla , County Kerry , United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
DATE OF DEATH January 7, 1960
Place of death London , UK