Baby Peggy’s Disturbing Story

Baby Peggy was one of the most mistreated child stars, but even when she grew up, the terrors kept coming. Surrounded by lecherous men, she was no stranger to their advances—that is, until she discovered the perfect secret weapon to keep their nasty hands off her. Over the past century, child stars have endeared their way into people’s hearts. Baby Peggy was the first of many, and she forged a path for child actors when there wasn’t one. But being a groundbreaker also meant she had to navigate the harsh realities of being a child actor without a blueprint.

On October 29th, 1918, in San Diego, California, Baby Peggy came into the world as Peggy Jean Montgomery. When it came to being discovered, she had an undeniable stroke of luck. Her father was a former cowboy and park ranger who worked as a stuntman for Tom Mix, Hollywood’s first Western star. One day, the toddler accompanied her mother and a family friend to Century Studios, where Jack was working. As fate would have it, Peggy made a stunning impression on some very important people while on the film set. She wowed the movie’s director with her good behavior and compliance with her father’s directions. He immediately cast the toddler in a few short films with Brownie the Wonder Dog, the studio’s canine star.

In 1921, the studio released “Playmates,” which led to Peggy accepting a long-term contract with the studio. Between 1921 and 1924, Peggy worked tirelessly. She acted in nearly 150 short comedy movies. In 1923, Peggy joined Universal Studios. Now a bona fide star, she wielded a power she didn’t even know she had. Her popularity made her schedule even more grueling. Outside of filming, she held in-person promotional tours throughout the US. During the 1924 Democratic Convention, she became its official mascot. She stood on stage next to Franklin D. Roosevelt and waved the American flag. Her parents used her as their golden ticket and cashed in on her fame in a disturbing way.

Peggy’s parents seized the opportunity to enrich the family. Her images graced countless magazine covers, ads for businesses, and charities. Before reaching the age of five, she secured different product endorsements such as dolls, handbags, jewelry, and milk. Still, these lucrative deals were just the tip of the iceberg. Peggy scored herself a huge payday; her film contract with Universal gave her an annual income of $1.5 million (about $23.7 million today). However, due to her age, Little Peggy didn’t exactly have control over her own finances. Peggy’s success provided a good life not just for her, but for her entire family. Before she’d even turned three, the Montgomerys began living it up in a mansion in Beverly Hills with maids at their service. They stayed in high-end hotels, owned a $30,000 car, and the tiny actress traveled to work in a limo.

The media attention on Baby Peggy made her a social darling, and the year she turned six, Peggy received more than 1.2 million fan letters. There were rumors that her family had to hire five people just to sort through the mail. However, the admiration she received inspired other self-seeking parents. Later in her life, Peggy said she believed her success made the mothers of Shirley Temple and Judy Garland, who she later befriended, aspire for their daughters to reach the same heights of fame. Garland apparently owned a Baby Peggy doll as a child. But though the child star seemed to have it all, behind the scenes, life was far from rosy.

Life on sets wasn’t great for Peggy. Exploitation was rife. She came up in the industry when child stars were a new phenomenon, which meant there were no laws to protect them. As a toddler, Peggy was on set eight hours per day for six days a week. She didn’t receive breaks for rest or proper schooling. Her public identity created an internal conflict with her true self. The aura of Baby Peggy overshadowed the real Peggy Jean Montgomery. She struggled to balance the two, feeling her private self couldn’t exist under the crushing weight of her public persona. The frustration over her inability to reconcile both identities eventually created a personal crisis. This inner turmoil she faced almost led to a mental collapse—a pattern of events that later reemerged in her life.

On film sets, Peggy’s welfare was at stake. The child actor did most of her stunts, which were often brutally dangerous. One scene called for her to flee a burning room alone. The door that was supposed to be her escape route caught on fire. Luckily, Peggy found a window and climbed out, only to discover that the windowsill was also on fire. And the neglect didn’t end there. Although she was the family’s breadwinner, Peggy didn’t have any control. Instead, her parents managed her fortune. They recklessly spent money on cars, homes, and clothes. Throughout her childhood, Peggy and her sister barely attended school. Unsurprisingly, the child star spent most of her time on sets, but if she hoped to one day further her education, a huge obstacle stood in her way: there was no money saved for her future.

Out of the blue, Baby Peggy’s film career came to a crashing halt, and it was all thanks to her dad. In 1925, Jack got into an argument with producer Sol Lesser regarding her wages. In retaliation, Lesser revoked Peggy’s contract. Following the incident, Hollywood boycotted her, and she only got a minor role in her last movie. At the tender age of seven, her film career was over, but she wasn’t done with show business. While Hollywood abandoned her, Peggy’s Vaudeville career still thrived. For four years, she went on an arduous tour. Baby Peggy endured medical issues throughout her tour; during that time, she often suffered from tonsillitis and other illnesses. Despite her poor health, she continued to perform through the pain. There were even times when her parents put a bucket on each side of the stage so that she could throw up before she went on and after she left.

When Peggy’s film career went kaput, her family’s exorbitant spending didn’t follow suit. Around the time Universal dropped her, her grandfather stole most of her fortune. Although her earnings from her Vaudeville tour helped to rebuild the family’s finances, their lavish lifestyle eventually caught up with them. The Montgomerys had to sell their Beverly Hills home, but it wasn’t enough to get them in the clear. Peggy and her family left flashy Hollywood for a ranch in rural Wyoming. Her father took $75,000 from the proceeds of the sale of the family home in LA and put down a payment on the property, which he hoped to turn into a luxury retreat. But the stock market crash of 1929 put an end to those lofty plans. Thus, the family struggled with the onset of the Great Depression, while Peggy faced an inevitable reckoning.

Peggy found a silver lining in her new life. She enjoyed her life away from the stage and sets, but sadly, it didn’t last. The family went broke and sold all their valuable possessions to make ends meet. Left with no option, Peggy reluctantly returned to Hollywood with her family and $300 borrowed from a friend. Hollywood changed a lot after Peggy left; talkies (movies with sound) were in. She also learned the hard way that she wasn’t a baby anymore. Now a teenager, she struggled to find work as an extra. When she did, she only got paid $3 a day and found herself surrounded by former silent film stars also reduced to working as extras.

As a young child, Peggy got away with her sporadic attendance at school, but now the situation was different. The Los Angeles School Board insisted that she go to school, so Peggy and her sister attended the Lawlor Professional School, which had an accommodating schedule for child actors. There, her classmates included Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland. Before long, all of her family had to work to survive. Their struggles led to marital strife between Peggy’s parents. There was only so much that she could take. Her return to Hollywood floundered, and a career revival seemed unlikely. Her home life just wasn’t the haven she craved. As a result, she had several nervous breakdowns. Frustrated with her professional and personal troubles, 17-year-old Peggy ran away with her sister.

A chance at retribution came a few years later. In 1938, Jackie Coogan, Peggy’s contemporary who shared similar experiences, sued his parents for misappropriating his fortune. Concerned she would follow suit, her parents asked Peggy if she had the same intention. Although Peggy didn’t take legal action against her parents, her case helped change Californian law. In 1939, the state of California passed the California Child Actor’s Bill, aka the Coogan Act. The law protects child actors from maltreatment and ensures a share of their earnings goes into a trust. So while Peggy didn’t get her money back, her harrowing story helped future child actors keep theirs.

Following her break from her parents, Peggy continued to struggle to reestablish herself in Hollywood. Despite the challenges she faced, there were some happy moments. On the set of “Ah, Wilderness!”, she met Gordon Ayres, a bartender who also desired to make it in Hollywood. Three years later, they were married. Peggy had difficulties shaking off the shadows of her past. Although she was now an adult, people couldn’t stop seeing her as Baby Peggy. She decided she had to reinvent herself in a drastic way: a name change. Drawing inspiration from actress Diana Wynyard and her husband’s surname, she became Diana Ayres, the child star formerly known as Baby Peggy.

But if she assumed that the identity change would help her career, she was mistaken. As an adult, Diana learned there was another kind of danger on set. In an interview later in her life, she told of how men would linger around the sets and approach girls by massaging their necks. Unfortunately, the young actress wasn’t immune to their advances, but she eventually found a way to keep the vultures at bay. As it turned out, intellectual women scared the men on the set. When Diana went to work, she would bring a highly academic book, which was somehow kryptonite to them. Once the men saw her with it, they stayed away from her.

Diana’s personal life continued to change, but not in a happy way. After a decade of marriage, she and Ayres divorced. Following the split, she converted to Roman Catholicism and changed her name again. This time, she became known as Diana Serra. It was the beginning of yet another chapter, but the biggest change was yet to come. After years of struggling to rebuild her acting career, Diana gave up on it. From a young age, she disliked acting; however, as an adult, she grew to hate it and decided to move on to an entirely new life. She worked as a switchboard operator, a bookstore assistant, and a gift shop manager. Eventually, her love of books led to her most fulfilling job yet.

Peggy’s interest in the written word led her in a different direction. In 1954, she founded a greeting card company. Later, she managed a bookstore at the University of California in San Diego during the 60s. Meanwhile, she moonlighted as a freelance magazine writer and journalist on historical and religious topics. As her professional life gained stability, so did her love life. With one failed marriage behind her, Diana finally found the love of her life. In 1954, she married Robert Cary, an artist. They had a son and stayed married until Robert’s passing in 2001.

Diana became a film historian and began to write books. Drawing from her father’s experiences as a cowboy turned stuntman, she released her first novel, “The Hollywood Posse,” in 1975. Three years later, she wrote about the horror stories and fates of child actors in “Hollywood’s Children: An Inside Account of the Child Star Era.” After decades of struggle, Diana purged the demons of her past. In 1996, she released her memoir, “Whatever Happened to Baby Peggy?” Writing the book had been a cathartic experience as she reflected on her career and her parents’ mishandling of her fortune.

What’s more, Diana made sure that this growing awareness of child star struggles didn’t end with her story. In 2003, she put the spotlight on her fellow child star Jackie Coogan, titled “Jackie Coogan: The World’s Boy King.” In her autobiography, Diana also recalled the fates of other child stars, including her friend Judy Garland. She continued to promote the rights of child performers and became a member of the non-profit advocacy organization A Minor Consideration. As an activist, Diana spoke at movie screenings, hoping to educate the public and raise awareness about the issues and dangers child actors faced in the industry.

In deep contrast to her earlier years, Diana didn’t shy away from talking about her heyday. She participated in documentaries where she gave further insight into that time of her life. In 2017, she celebrated her 99th birthday with the release of her first novel, “The Drowning of the Moon.” On February 24th, 2020, she died at her home in California at the age of 101. Just ten days prior, she’d spoken to Silents as Platinum, a silent film blog, about the realities of life as a child star, continuing to campaign for a cause close to her heart.