Peggy Shannon

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Peggy Shannon in the 1920s

Peggy Shannon (born Winona Sammon January 10, 1907 in Pine Bluff , Arkansas , † May 11, 1941 in Los Angeles , California ) was an American actress . Shannon began her career in 1924 as a dancer with the Ziegfeld Follies before starting a career on Broadway . Shannon received her first film role in 1930 with Paramount Pictures . The studio planned to build the young actress as the it girl and successor to Clara Bow . In 1932 Shannon moved to 20th Century Fox . In the following ten years she worked in almost 40 film productions. Her main role in Deluge , a pioneer of the modern disaster film, gained fame here . The last years of Shannon's life were marked by heavy alcoholism , which also had a negative impact on her career, which it finally ended in 1940. The following year, Peggy Shannon died of addiction at the age of 34.

Private life

Peggy Shannon (between 1923 and 1928)

Peggy Shannon was born the older of two children to Edward and Nannie Sammon on the upper floor of their father's store in downtown Pine Bluff. She attended the Catholic Girls' Sacred Heart Convent School and then Pine Bluff High School. Through the then child actress Madge Evans , Shannon got the idea early on to pursue a career as an actress.

In 1926 she married the actor Alan Davis. During the 1930s, Shannon became increasingly addicted to alcoholism. In July 1940 she separated from Alan Davis, who, according to his own statements, was alleged to have been violent on several occasions. In the same year Shannon married the cameraman and actor Albert G. Roberts, which brought her criticism so shortly after the divorce from Davis. The couple lived in an apartment in North Hollywood.

On May 11, 1941, after a fishing trip, Peggy Shannon was found dead in the couple's apartment by her husband Roberts and friends from the film studio. She was hunched over the kitchen table, an empty glass in her hand. The cause of death was a heart attack and liver disease caused by Shannon's years of alcoholism. She was buried in Hollywood Forever Cemetery . Shannon's gravestone bears the inscription "That Red Headed Girl" next to her name and the dates of her life. However, the year of birth was incorrectly given as 1910 on the inscription.

Just three weeks after Shannon's death celebrated its Widower Albert G. Roberts in the kitchen of their apartment suicide in which his wife was found dead. He had shot himself with his hunting rifle in the same chair that Shannon was sitting in at the time of her death. He left a suicide note with the words:

“I am very much in love with my wife, Peggy Shannon. This is where she died, so in awe of her you will find me in the same place. "

In the weeks before, Roberts had indicated a possible suicide to several people around him and suffered from paranoia in the time after Shannon's death . He was not buried next to his wife, but instead found his final resting place in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California . Peggy Shannon's mother later hired several private detectives and lawyers to investigate because of doubts about the cause of her daughter's death.

Career

Broadway running track

Peggy Shannon was discovered by Florence Ziegfeld junior as a choir girl while visiting her aunt in New York in 1923 . In October of the same year she got an engagement as a dancer with the Ziegfeld Follies in the famous New Amsterdam Theater until May 1924 , which gave her first roles as an actress on Broadway.

In 1925 Shannon was elected Miss Coney Island , which made her famous outside of the theater scene. She expressed a desire to play in serious roles in the future. Since 1927, the actress has starred in small roles in plays such as Piggy , What Ann Brought Home, and High Gear , but all of which were comedies. It wasn't until 1929 that she played her first role in a dramatic play in Now-a-Days , followed by Cross Roads that same year.

After 1931, Shannon was not seen in plays for three years due to her film career. In 1934 she returned to Broadway for the play Page Miss Glory . The following year Shannon was slated to star in the Broadway production of The Light Behind the Shadow , but was replaced by another actress due to her bad behavior and alcohol addiction. Official reports from the theater said Shannon had dropped out due to a tooth infection.

After the failure on The Light Behind the Shadow , Shannon's stage career came to an end. Her last appearance was in February 1936 in the role of Kitty Linderman in the drama Alice Takat .

Film career

Peggy Shannon with Richard Arlen filming The Secret Call (1931)

During a performance on Broadway in 1927, Shannon was discovered by film producer BP Schulberg and signed to Paramount Pictures. She played her first small roles in 1930 and 1931 in the three short films The Gob , Opening Night and The Meal Ticket . In Hollywood arrived it was as the new It Girl marketed and built from the studio in place of Clara Bow. In the 1931 film The Secret Call , Shannon even replaced Bow in the female lead after she had to fail due to a nervous breakdown. Although she never achieved the fame of Clara Bows and thus did not become her “successor”, the film helped Shannon to a career as a film actress that would last for several years successfully. In 1932 she moved from Paramount Pictures to 20th Century Fox.

In the years that followed, Shannon played the lead role in a large number of Fox Studios productions, most of which were in the B-movie genre. Until 1934 she was seen in 13 such productions. Shannon had one of her most famous film appearances in 1933 as Claire Arlington in the disaster film Deluge , in which New York is destroyed by a tidal wave. The film is one of the first of its kind and has received praise primarily for its elaborate effects. The producer was RKO Pictures , to whom it was loaned by 20th Century Fox.

Shannon was considered difficult and spirited on the set. According to her fellow actors, she is said to have been busy shooting several films at the same time for up to 16 hours a day. Simultaneous shooting for two films should have been normal for her. Rumors began to emerge on the film scene that Shannon was suffering from alcoholism. In fact, her health deteriorated as a result.

In 1936 Shannon made the drama Youth on Parole, her first film since the failed reboot on Broadway. In the following years, however, she was rarely seen in leading roles.

After her addiction increased, Shannon received less and less important film offers. Her role as Mrs. Jones in the 1939 comedy Die Frauen was not even named in the credits. Shannon played one last major role in 1940 as the mother of Mickey Henry ( Robert Blake ) in the short film The Little Rascals All About Harsh . Her last appearance was in the same year in the Western Triple Justice .

Act

Peggy Shannon was considered Pine Bluff's most famous daughter during her lifetime. After the premiere of her film The Secret Call in July 1931, the then mayor of the city proclaimed July 14th as Peggy Shannon Day . As part of a 1992 Pine Bluff Downtown Development project, the walls of downtown Pine Bluff buildings were decorated with murals. In 2002 the local artist Michael Wojczuk made a mural entitled Two Who Shaped the Movies , which shows the cameraman Freeman Owens and the actor Max Aaronson as the main motif as well as an image of Peggy Shannon on a film tape.

Filmography

  • 1930: The Gob (short film)
  • 1931: Opening Night (short film)
  • 1931: The Meal Ticket (short film)
  • 1931: The Secret Call
  • 1931: Silence
  • 1931: The Road to Reno
  • 1931: touchdown
  • 1932: This Reckless Age
  • 1932: Hotel Continental
  • 1932: Society Girl
  • 1932: The Painted Woman
  • 1932: False Faces
  • 1933: Girl Missing
  • 1933: Deluge
  • 1933: Devil's Mate
  • 1933: Turn Back the Clock
  • 1933: Fury of the Jungle
  • 1934: The Back Page
  • 1935: Night Life of the Gods
  • 1935: Fighting Lady
  • 1935: The Case of the Lucky Legs
  • 1936: The Man I Marry
  • 1936: Ellis Island
  • 1937: Romancing Along
  • 1937: Youth on Parole
  • 1938: Girls on Probation
  • 1939: Blackwell's Island
  • 1939: The Adventures of Jane Arden
  • 1939: Fixer Dugan
  • 1939: The Women (The Women)
  • 1939: Day for a Day
  • 1939: The Amazing Mr. Williams
  • 1939: Cafe Hostess
  • 1940: The House Across the Bay
  • 1940: All About Hash (short film)
  • 1940: Triple Justice

Appearances on Broadway

Source:

  • 1923–1924: Ziegfeld Follies of 1923 ( New Amsterdam Theater )
  • 1927: Piggy (Royale Theater, Chanin's 46th Street Theater)
  • 1927: What Ann Brought Home (Wallack's Theater)
  • 1927: High Gear (Wallack's Theater)
  • 1928: Back Here (Klaw Theater)
  • 1929: Now-a-Days (Forrest Theater)
  • 1929: Cross Roads (Morosco Theater)
  • 1929–1930: Damn Your Honor (Cosmopolitan Theater)
  • 1930–1931: Life is Like That (Little Theater)
  • 1931: Napi (Longacre Theater)
  • 1934–1935: Page Miss Glory (Mansfield Theater)
  • 1936: Alice Takat (John Golden Theater)

literature

Web links

Commons : Peggy Shannon  - collection of images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ John Shipman Springer, Jack D. Hamilton: They had faces then: super stars, stars, and starlets of the 1930’s . Citadel Press, New York 1974, ISBN 978-0-8065-0300-4 , page 327.
  2. ↑ a b Peggy Shannon. In: glamourgirlsofthesilverscreen.com. Retrieved January 18, 2019 .
  3. ↑ a b c d Michelle Morgan: The Mammoth Book of Hollywood Scandals . Hachette UK, London 2013, ISBN 978-1-4721-0034-4 , chapter 25.
  4. ↑ Official records, as well as almost all sources and contemporary obituaries, name 1907 as Shannon's year of birth.
  5. ^ I am very much in love with my wife, Peggy Shannon. In this spot she died, so in reverence to her, you will find me in the same spot.
  6. ^ Allan R. Ellenberger: Peggy Shannon at Hollywood Forever. In: allanellenberger.com. January 16, 2013, accessed April 12, 2020 .
  7. ↑ David Stenn: Clara Bow: Runnin 'Wild . Cooper Square Press, Lanham 2000, ISBN 978-1-4616-6091-0 , 232.
  8. ^ Leonard Maltin : The Little Rascals: The Life and Times of Our Gang . Crown Publishing Group, New York 1992, ISBN 978-0-517-58325-8 , page 208.
  9. ↑ Jack Schnedler: Downtown murals portray Pine Bluff's vibrant past. In: Arkansas Democrat Gazette. January 12, 2017, accessed January 19, 2019 .
  10. ^ Film Makers. In: muralcity.org. Retrieved January 19, 2019 .
  11. ^ The Broadway League: Peggy Shannon. In: Internet Broadway Database. Retrieved January 15, 2019 .
  12. ↑ Peggy Shannon. In: Playbill. Retrieved June 3, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Shannon, Peggy
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Sammon, Winona
BRIEF DESCRIPTION US-american actress
DATE OF BIRTH January 10, 1907
PLACE OF BIRTH Pine Bluff , Arkansas , United States
DATE OF DEATH May 11, 1941
Place of death Los Angeles , California , United States