Peggy Fears
Encyclopedia
Peggy Fears was an America
n actress, who appeared in Broadway
musical comedies during the 1920s and 1930s before becoming a Broadway producer.
student Jock Whitney took her to the Richman Club where vocalist Helen Morgan
heard her singing and encouraged her to attend auditions being conducted by Florenz Ziegfeld
.
Beginning with Have a Heart (1917). Fears performed in ten Broadway productions, including the Ziegfeld Follies of 1925
. In Ziegfeld's No Foolin (1926) she appeared with Edna Leedom and the Yacht Club Boys
plus a chorus line with Paulette Goddard
, Susan Fleming
, Clare Luce and Baby Vogt. By 1932, with Child of Manhattan
(written by Preston Sturges
), Fears became a Broadway producer. Her only motion picture appearance is the role of Gaby Aimee in The Lottery Lover (1935).
In 1971, Louise Brooks
, a former lesbian
lover to Fears by her own account, wrote for Sight & Sound
about meeting Peggy Fears and W.C. Fields in 1925:
. As Broadway producers during the early 1930s, they co-produced Music in the Air
, written by Jerome Kern
and Oscar Hammerstein II
. The show had a run of 342 performances in 1932-33.
Blumenthal earned $15 million during the first three years of their marriage. Fears purchased five Rolls Royce
autos and a $65,000 chinchilla
coat, retaining only $300 in her bank account. The couple fought and split up. Eventually, they reunited and renewed their vows during three different marriage ceremonies. In 1950 Fears and Blumenthal separated permanently. Fears entertained in night clubs, and Blumenthal lived in Mexico
.
Although she had been married, Fears is described by those who knew her as being bisexual, or even lesbian, but primarily preferring the company of women in her private life. According to actress Louise Brooks, she and Fears were involved with one another, but Brooks never allowed herself to let the affair develop into a serious relationship.
's original Yacht Club. Part of the construction was a cinderblock hotel which still stands today. She invested $10,000 and bought an inlet on Great South Bay. In 1959, she paid off the last of her debt on her property. It was then valued at $350,000.
While a resident of Fire Island, she had a stormy romantic relationship with Tedi Thurman
, famed in the 1950s as the sexy voice of Miss Monitor on NBC's Monitor
. Thurman was interviewed about her life with Fears for Crayton Robey's documentary film, When Ocean Meets Sky (2003), which features Sara Ramirez as the voice of Peggy Fears. In 1966 she sold out her interest to John B. Whyte
.
Fears died August 24, 1994 at the age of 91 in La Crescenta-Montrose, California
.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
n actress, who appeared in Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
musical comedies during the 1920s and 1930s before becoming a Broadway producer.
Theater
Leaving New Orleans at the age of 16, she attended the Semple School. Yale UniversityYale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
student Jock Whitney took her to the Richman Club where vocalist Helen Morgan
Helen Morgan
Helen Morgan was an American singer and actress who worked in films and on the stage. A quintessential torch singer, she made a big splash in the Chicago club scene in the 1920s...
heard her singing and encouraged her to attend auditions being conducted by Florenz Ziegfeld
Florenz Ziegfeld
Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr. , , was an American Broadway impresario, notable for his series of theatrical revues, the Ziegfeld Follies , inspired by the Folies Bergère of Paris. He also produced the musical Show Boat...
.
Beginning with Have a Heart (1917). Fears performed in ten Broadway productions, including the Ziegfeld Follies of 1925
Ziegfeld Follies
The Ziegfeld Follies were a series of elaborate theatrical productions on Broadway in New York City from 1907 through 1931. They became a radio program in 1932 and 1936 as The Ziegfeld Follies of the Air....
. In Ziegfeld's No Foolin (1926) she appeared with Edna Leedom and the Yacht Club Boys
Yacht Club Boys
The Yacht Club Boys was a quartet of American comic singers, popular in the 1920s and 1930s: Charles Adler, George Kelly, Billy Mann, and Jimmie Kern . They made recordings from the 1920s and appeared as a specialty act in several feature films of the 1930s...
plus a chorus line with Paulette Goddard
Paulette Goddard
Paulette Goddard was an American film and theatre actress. A former child fashion model and in several Broadway productions as Ziegfeld Girl, she was a major star of the Paramount Studio in the 1940s. She was married to several notable men, including Charlie Chaplin, Burgess Meredith, and Erich...
, Susan Fleming
Susan Fleming
Susan Fleming was an American actress known as the "Girl with the Million Dollar Legs" for a role she played in the W. C. Fields film Million Dollar Legs...
, Clare Luce and Baby Vogt. By 1932, with Child of Manhattan
Child of Manhattan (play)
Child of Manhattan is a play by Preston Sturges, his fifth to be produced on Broadway and his last for almost twenty years as his career took him to Hollywood...
(written by Preston Sturges
Preston Sturges
Preston Sturges , originally Edmund Preston Biden, was a celebrated playwright, screenwriter and film director born in Chicago, Illinois...
), Fears became a Broadway producer. Her only motion picture appearance is the role of Gaby Aimee in The Lottery Lover (1935).
In 1971, Louise Brooks
Louise Brooks
Mary Louise Brooks , generally known by her stage name Louise Brooks, was an American dancer, model, showgirl and silent film actress, noted for popularizing the bobbed haircut. Brooks is best known for her three feature roles including two G. W...
, a former lesbian
Lesbian
Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...
lover to Fears by her own account, wrote for Sight & Sound
Sight & Sound
Sight & Sound is a British monthly film magazine published by the British Film Institute .Sight & Sound was first published in 1932 and in 1934 management of the magazine was handed to the nascent BFI, which still publishes the magazine today...
about meeting Peggy Fears and W.C. Fields in 1925:
- The fifth floor dressing-room lost its exclusive atmosphere when Peggy Fears, who had also transferred from Louie the 14th to the Follies, decided to become my best friend. She was a darling girl, with a sweet singing voice, from Dallas, Texas. Her smooth chestnut-coloured hair was untouched by dyes or permanent waves. Instead of the expensive gowns of a Follies girl, she wore schoolgirl sweaters and skirts. Perhaps it was her whimsical sense of fun that attracted her to me. And what could be more fun than Peggy, the most popular girl in the show, becoming friends with its most abominated member--me? One night she crashed our dressing-room carrying a Wedgwood teapot full of corn whiskey and, knowing my literary pretensions, two disgustingly vulgar magazines, Broadway Brevities and the Police Gazette. A week later we were living together in the Gladstone Hotel off Park Avenue, where swarmed Peggy's friends until September when she went on tour with the Follies and I went into The American VenusThe American VenusThe American Venus is an American feature film directed by Frank Tuttle, and starring Esther Ralston, Ford Sterling, Edna May Oliver, Lawrence Gray, Fay Lanphier, Louise Brooks, Kenneth MacKenna, and Douglas Fairbanks Jr., and released by Paramount Pictures. Brooks appears, in her first credited...
at Paramount's Long Island studio.
- It was through Peggy Fears that I came to know Bill Fields. Before the matinée, at the Rosary Florist, she would select a bouquet to be wrapped in waxed paper and presented to Bill in his dressing-room. It touched his heart. Bill adored beautiful girls, but few were invited to his dressing-room. He was morbidly sensitive about the skin disease which inflamed his nose and sometimes erupted on his hands, making it necessary for him to learn to juggle wearing gloves. After several devastating experiences with beautiful girls he had decided to restrict his choice of girl friends to those less attractive whom he would not find adrift with saxophone players.
- Bill entertained Peggy and me with distinction. His bar was an open wardrobe trunk fitted with shelves, planted, as if it were an objet d'art, beside his chair. While Shorty, the silent dwarf who was his valet and assistant on the stage, went about preparing our drinks, Peggy and I would dance around Bill who sat at his make-up shelf, listening to our nonsense with gracious attention.
Marriages and relationships
On June 19, 1927, she married Alfred Cleveland BlumenthalAlfred Cleveland Blumenthal
Alfred Cleveland Blumenthal was an American real estate developer, theatrical promoter and husband of actress Peggy Fears.-Biography:...
. As Broadway producers during the early 1930s, they co-produced Music in the Air
Music in the Air
Music in the Air is a musical written by Oscar Hammerstein II and Jerome Kern . It introduced songs such as "The Song Is You", "In Egern on the Tegern See" and "I've Told Ev'ry Little Star"...
, written by Jerome Kern
Jerome Kern
Jerome David Kern was an American composer of musical theatre and popular music. One of the most important American theatre composers of the early 20th century, he wrote more than 700 songs, used in over 100 stage works, including such classics as "Ol' Man River", "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man", "A...
and Oscar Hammerstein II
Oscar Hammerstein II
Oscar Greeley Clendenning Hammerstein II was an American librettist, theatrical producer, and theatre director of musicals for almost forty years. Hammerstein won eight Tony Awards and was twice awarded an Academy Award for "Best Original Song". Many of his songs are standard repertoire for...
. The show had a run of 342 performances in 1932-33.
Blumenthal earned $15 million during the first three years of their marriage. Fears purchased five Rolls Royce
Rolls-Royce (car)
This a list of Rolls-Royce motor cars and includes vehicles produced by:*Rolls-Royce Limited *Rolls-Royce Motors , which was owned by Vickers between 1980 and 1998, and after that by Volkswagen...
autos and a $65,000 chinchilla
Chinchilla
Chinchillas are crepuscular rodents, slightly larger and more robust than ground squirrels, and are native to the Andes mountains in South America. Along with their relatives, viscachas, they make up the family Chinchillidae....
coat, retaining only $300 in her bank account. The couple fought and split up. Eventually, they reunited and renewed their vows during three different marriage ceremonies. In 1950 Fears and Blumenthal separated permanently. Fears entertained in night clubs, and Blumenthal lived in Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
.
Although she had been married, Fears is described by those who knew her as being bisexual, or even lesbian, but primarily preferring the company of women in her private life. According to actress Louise Brooks, she and Fears were involved with one another, but Brooks never allowed herself to let the affair develop into a serious relationship.
Real estate
Fears built Fire Island Pines, New YorkFire Island Pines, New York
Fire Island Pines is a hamlet in the Town of Brookhaven, Suffolk County, New York, United States...
's original Yacht Club. Part of the construction was a cinderblock hotel which still stands today. She invested $10,000 and bought an inlet on Great South Bay. In 1959, she paid off the last of her debt on her property. It was then valued at $350,000.
While a resident of Fire Island, she had a stormy romantic relationship with Tedi Thurman
Tedi Thurman
Theodora Thurman, better known as Tedi Thurman, was a fashion model and actress who found fame in the 1950s as Miss Monitor on NBC's Monitor, programmed by Pat Weaver as an innovative 40-hour weekend radio show....
, famed in the 1950s as the sexy voice of Miss Monitor on NBC's Monitor
Monitor (NBC Radio)
NBC Monitor was an American weekend radio program broadcast from June 12, 1955, until January 26, 1975. Airing live and nationwide on the NBC Radio Network, it originally aired beginning Saturday morning at 8am and continuing through the weekend until 12 midnight on Sunday...
. Thurman was interviewed about her life with Fears for Crayton Robey's documentary film, When Ocean Meets Sky (2003), which features Sara Ramirez as the voice of Peggy Fears. In 1966 she sold out her interest to John B. Whyte
John B. Whyte
John Burlingame Whyte was a real-estate investor who developed Fire Island Pines, New York.-Biography:Whyte was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and attended Washington University in St...
.
Fears died August 24, 1994 at the age of 91 in La Crescenta-Montrose, California
La Crescenta-Montrose, California
La Crescenta-Montrose is a census-designated place and an unincorporated area in Los Angeles County, California, encompassing those parts of the Crescenta Valley not in the cities of Glendale or La Cañada Flintridge. However, both the unincorporated area and the portion of incorporated Glendale...
.
Sources
- Brooks, Louise. Lulu in Hollywood. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1982.
- Charleston Daily MailCharleston Daily MailThe Charleston Daily Mail is a Pulitzer Prize winning Monday-Friday morning newspaper in Charleston, West Virginia.-Publishing History:The Daily Mail was founded in 1914 by former Alaska Gov. Walter Eli Clark and remained the property of his heirs until 1987. Governor Clark described the newspaper...
, "In the Wonderful World of Jim Bishop," Friday, September 2, 1960, Page 5.