
Acting
Baby Peggy
Born 1918-10-29 · San Diego, California, USA
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Diana Serra Cary (born Peggy-Jean Montgomery, October 29, 1918 – February 24, 2020), known as Baby Peggy, was an American child film actress, vaudevillian, author and silent film historian. At the time of her death, she was one of the last living film stars of the Silent Era of Hollywood. Montgomery, as she then was, was one of the three major American child stars of the Hollywood silent film era along with Jackie Coogan and Baby Marie. Between 1921 and 1923 she made over 150 short films for the Century Film Corporation. In 1922 she received over 1.2 million fan letters, and by 1924 she had been dubbed The Million Dollar Baby for her $1.5 million annual salary ($22 million in 2018). Despite her childhood fame and wealth, she found herself poor and working as an extra by the 1930s. Having an interest in both writing and history since her youth, Montgomery found a second career as an author and silent film historian in her later years under the name Diana Serra Cary. She was the author of several books including her historical novel, The Drowning of the Moon, and was an advocate for child actors' rights. Cary died at her home in Gustine, California at the age of 101.
Acting credits
6.8A documentary chronicling the shared experiences of prominent former child stars and the personal and professional price of fame and failure on a child.
Showbiz Kids
2020
Baby Peggy, one of the biggest child stars in movie history, does not disappoint in this charming silent comedy, even though it only exists in fragmentary form. Through the short, she interacts with a number of animals, especially a goose she wants to cook.
Peggy, Behave!
1922
6.6Documentary about an extraordinary lady, Diana Serra Cary (born Peggy-Jean Montgomery). In the early 1920s she was one of Hollywood's first major child stars, Baby Peggy.
Baby Peggy: The Elephant in the Room
2012
7.0A Baby Peggy two-reeler
Sweetie
1923
6.1A writer takes a job as a secretary because her scrupulous husband isn't bringing in the dough as an attorney. When her new employer is murdered, she can't seem to make up her mind as to whether she "dunnit" or not.
True Confession
1937
9.0Angela comes to Hollywood with only two things: Her dream to become a movie star, and Grandpa. She leaves an Aunt, a brother, Grandma, and her longtime boyfriend back in Centerville. Despite seeing major movie stars around every corner, and knocking on every casting office door in town, at the end of her first day she is still unemployed. To her horror, when she arrives back at their hotel, she finds that Grandpa has been cast in a movie by William DeMille and quickly becomes a star during the ensuing weeks. Her family, worried that Angela and Grandpa are getting into trouble, come to Hollywood to drag them back home. In short order Aunt, Grandma, brother, boyfriend and even the parrot become superstars, but Angela is still unemployed...
Hollywood
1923
6.6At the turn of the century, a young man graduates high school and realizes the joys and sorrows of growing up, with some loving help and guidance from his wise father. A tender, coming-of-age story, with a wonderful look at a long-gone, but fondly remembered, small town America.
Ah, Wilderness!
1935
Baby Peggy short – AKA Too Many Lovers Our Pet tell the story of little girl Baby Peggy who warding off thieves. This short film is one of the titles from 1920s silent film series “Baby Peggy” that played by Diana Serra Cary, the last living silent film star. She was the one of the three major American child stars of the Hollywood silent movie era along with Jackie Coogan and Baby Marie . Most of Cary's “Baby Peggy” films including Our Pet had been lost when the Century Studios burned down in 1926. In September 2016, Japanese silent film narrator (Benshi) and silent film collector Ichiro Kataoka discovered the 9.5 mm print of this long lost film in Japan and brought it back to the screen with his Benshi performance.
Our Pet
1924
9.0Baby Peggy and Brownie the Dog star in this adorable short.
Playmates
1921
9.0Among the pieces featured in Fragments are the final reel of John Ford's The Village Blacksmith (1922) and a glimpse at Emil Jannings in The Way of All Flesh (1927), the only Oscar®-winning performance in a lost film. Fragments also features clips from such lost films as Cleopatra (1917), starring Theda Bara; The Miracle Man (1919), with Lon Chaney; He Comes Up Smiling (1918), starring Douglas Fairbanks; an early lost sound film, Gold Diggers of Broadway (1929), filmed in early Technicolor, and the only color footage of silent star Clara Bow, Red Hair (1928). The program is rounded out with interviews of film preservationists involved in identifying and restoring these films. Also featured is a new interview with Diana Serra Cary, best known as "Baby Peggy", one of the major American child stars of the silent era, who discusses one of the featured fragments, Darling of New York (1923).
Fragments: Surviving Pieces of Lost Films
2011
7.0Baby Peggy is joined by her star-making partner, Brownie the Wonder Dog and is in a circus as a junior clown.
Circus Clowns
1922
4.9Teddy Shaw, a bored New York office girl, goes to a camp in the Catskill Mountains for rest and finds Chick Kirkland.
Having Wonderful Time
1938
8.3Clara Bow: Discovering the 'It' Girl features scenes from 25 of her films, as well as interviews with family members and acquaintances.
Clara Bow: Discovering the "It" Girl
1999
9.0A documentary about child actors, since the beginning of motion pictures (narrated by Roddy McDowell).
Hollywood’s Children
1982
6.5Michael 'Nuggin' Taylor and Powdah save lives during a sea tragedy in this story about the slave trade on the high seas during 1842.
Souls at Sea
1937
NRA 1927 silent-era series of Hollywood studio tours, these short subjects go behind the scenes at major studios and showcase famous stars, directors, and landmarks of the movie capital.
Life in Hollywood
1927
A 1921 American silent short film directed by Fred Hibbard for Century Film Company and starring Baby Peggy and Brownie the dog. It was rediscovered in Switzerland in 2010.
Brownie's Little Venus
1921
NRA documentary about the careers of child stars of the '40s in Hollywood, featuring movie clips with Shirley Temple, Margaret O'Brien, and numerous others along with interviews.
When We Were Young: Growing Up on the Silver Screen
1989
6.8During a tempestuous storm, a lighthouse keeper finds an infant girl who washes ashore tied to some wreckage. He adopts her and they become inseparable. Eventually her real family finds her and wants her to live with them.
Captain January
1924
7.5A documentary looking at the life, films, and troubled times of America's first sex symbol, screen actress Clara Bow, featuring interviews and archive footage. It takes a look at why she is considered the 'Lost Screen Goddess'.
Clara Bow: Hollywood's Lost Screen Goddess
2012
A feisty homeless orphan girl struggles with winter cold and hunger.
Such Is Life
1924
The adventures of Baby Peggy in her own house.
The Little Rascal
1922
7.0The 'secretary' of a busy newspaperman is revealed to be a cherubic small child, Baby Peggy. When a rich woman's pearl necklace is stolen, Baby Peggy's employer promises to make the reporter who cracks the case Editor-in-Chief. The little girl seizes the opportunity, and - several disguises and chases later, with the grudging aid of the office-boy - duly returns with the jewels to achieve promotion, with all the adults scurrying to serve her.
The Kid Reporter
1923
5.9A young man, who has vowed never to marry and doesn't particularly like children, is left in charge of his two very young nieces. At first they drive him to distraction, but then he begins to warm to them, and also to a beautiful young local girl.
Helen's Babies
1924