BABY PEGGY MONTGOMERY

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXI, Issue 19049, 28 June 1924, Page 13

BABY PEGGY MONTGOMERY

WHAT WILL BE HER FUTURE? Only a few days after the papers had proclaimed to the world that Baby Peggy had a' million-dollar contract to make pictures for the next year, I dropped in at the Biltmore to see her mother and father (writes Helen Klumpkin in the Picture-Play Magazine). Peggy and her older sister, Louise, curled up on the chair beside me and entertained me by drawing pictures. Peggy has not stage-child’s patter; she is oddly Sphinx-like. Peggy does not know that her experience has been -any different from most other children’s. She does not know the difference between a nickel and a dollar and money has never been discussed in her presence.

Just as a Chinese baby takes his slant eyes and coarse hair for granted; just as a princess accepts the homage of her subjects, Baby Peggy accepts the fact that she docs what her fathei tells her to do in front of the camera, goes to sec the daily rushes of her pictures, and has to meet a lot of silly grown people who seem to take co n plete leave of their senses when they talk to her. Her fifth birthday was celebrated by a big luncheon in the grand ballroom of the Biltmore Hotel in New York, attended by famous writers, artists, actors, and men prominent in the motion picture industry. Next day her gigam tic birthday cake was escorted by Peggy to the New York Foundling Home, where she had a lot more fun playing with the. children than she had had with the grown-ups the day before. Then she had to go to Newark to talk over the radio, she had to visit the toy department of a big department store, where thousands of children had gathered to greet her, she reviewed rhe police guard at Bryant Park, solemnly marching down the line of New" York ’s finest and seeing that their putties — which was about as high as she could see—were properly shined. Then there wore endless shopping trips. And Peggy came through it all as blythe • and unconcerned as though she had just spent, a pleasant morning playing on a sand f But what of her future?

Is Peggy going to be another of those children who never knew what a real childhood is like? Is she going to go on and on being pushed into the limelight until at twelve or fourteen she is one of those jaded, nervous, hypersensitive beings, who think that they crave solitude, but who really demand 'Continual excitement?

Peggy is not, not if her father has anything to say about it. And Air. Alontgomery usually has a great deal to say about what Peggy does and does not do.

“The present contract has a year to run,” Air. Alontgomery told me, “and after that Peggy probably will be able to make pictures for another year before she reaches the awkward age. At that time she will have earned enough to provide everything she and Louise will ever want.

She will never go on the stage or in the movies again if my influence counts for anything. I am an outdoors man and I want Peggy to grow up loving the out of doors as I do. She docs now, and as she grows older there will be a thousand and one other things to interest her. I’m going back to ranching.” “But won’t she miss the excitement of the studio? Like the circus horse and the smell of sawdust,” I asked. “Not at her age.” Air. Alontgomery feels positive of that. “A child of that age has endless curiosity—and I am sure she will taku to music and dancing lessons and longer school hours with just as much enthusiasm as making pictures. Acting in pictures has never been a joyous game to Peggy. It has been work, good hard work, from the fiVst day.” Perhaps you have wondered, as 1 have, how Baby Peggy really came to be in the movies. It is one of those stories that has Fate’s finger on it. The Alontgomery family was going from Spring Valley, Arizona, to Los Angeles, because the doctor had said that Mrs. Alontgomery was too frail to endure another bitter cold winter.

At Needles—where the train stopped and the passengers streamed out for a breath of air, a little old lady who said that her son wa« an electrician at one of the studios in Hollywood, asked Air. Mongomery why he didn’t put the baby in the pictures. “She’s the most obedient child I ever saw,” the old lady explained. “But they would be glad to get hold of her. Why my son says it is just terrible what a hard time they have getting some of the children to mind. They don’t care a snap about pretty children. A cote liftle girl like yours would suit thpm much better.”

But when the Montgomerys reaeaed Los Angeles every one told them, that the movie market was flooded with babies and that they didn’t have a chance. Air. Montgomery went to work at the Fox studios and later at Universal City as a cowboy, and the idea of putting Peggy in the movies was dropped. It was quite by accident th it Peggy and her mother went shopping with a woman who introduced them to a casting agent. Two days later he sent for the baby and she has been working in pictures ever since—almost three years.

One of the most attractive thing? about Peggy is her serene, independent air. I remember one day in Hollywood when she went with her father to a lunch counter across from the studio for a hurried luncheon.

“I will have chicken salad, mashed potatoes and chocolate ice cream, ’ ’ the baby earnestly informed the waiter. He bowed respectfully and returned with a glass of milk and two slices of graham bread. Peggy accepted them gravely and never let on that her queenly orders had not been obeyed. Her father really directs her scenes. And since she has been in pictures lio says that he has worked harder managing her affairs than he ever did ag u forest ranger. Peggy accepts it all blandly. Her life seems normal and pleasant. It is her father who is Jost about all in sometimes from the strain and worry. So the future of Baby Peggy doesn’t seem so much of a question to me as the future of Mr. Montgomery. He is an old fashioned parent und Peggy is a wide-awake little individual. And I have a feeling that there will come a day when she wi«« stop taking orders from father.

One of the most elaborate!/ screen offerings of the yeai tainly “The Spanish Dancer. Pola Negri’s latest offering through Paramount. This is a story set in the days when King Henry IVth. sat on the throne of Spain. It was a day of pomp and heraldry, and Herbert Brennon. who has brought this picture to the screen, has caught the atmospheil in all its detail and beauty. There are magnificent pag- i eants, glorious scenes of revelry in the courts of dissolute King Henry, and an atmosphere of heraldic romance. that has never before been portrayed on the silent sheet. And amid all, the scintilliating personality of Pola Negri stands out against this fascinating and picturesque background. The story of “The Spanish Dancer*’ is adapted from the Spanish novel “Don Caesar De Bazan.” Pola Negri plays the role of a young dancer whose fortunes lead her into the court of the King, but she forsakes the favours of the mighty for the love of a young Castilian nobleman. Wallace Berry plays the part of the swaggering Spanish King par excellence. Others In the cast are Adolph Menjou. Kathlyn Williams and Gare'h Hughes. “The Spanish Dancer” will bo presented at the local Paramount in a few weks time.