Peggy O'Neil

Biography

Margaret O’Neil drew her first breath amid the green hills of County Kerry on 16 June 1894—though a few stubborn calendars insist on 1898—before her family crossed the Atlantic and resettled in Buffalo, New York. Orphaned while still young, she was raised by nuns in a Niagara Falls convent, where the stagestruck girl traded catechism for curtain calls in nearby amateur productions. In 1913 the flicker of movie lights found her; she debuted in the one-reel melodrama *The Penalty of Crime*. A year later Broadway surrendered: *Peg O’ My Heart* put her name in electric bulbs and critics’ hearts. More hits followed—*The Flame*, *Tumble*—and in 1920 she sailed to London to open *Paddy the Next Best Thing*, a musical that ran 850 performances and turned her into a living logo; a Tin Pan Alley tune called “Peggy O’Neil” blasted from gramophones everywhere. Fame has shadows. During the London run a beribboned box of chocolates arrived at her dressing room. She shared them with her terrier; the dog collapsed dead, Peggy convulsed, and Scotland Yard chalked it up to a rejected suitor—case unsolved. She accepted a diamond from an English sculptor in 1924, then handed it back, explaining, “Some women keep house; I keep humming.” Off to Hollywood she went, signing with Jack White’s Mermaid comedies and clowning through *Air Pockets* and *Wedding Showers* as Peg O’Neil. When the laughter quieted, she returned to Broadway for the 1927 *Ziegfeld Follies*. On 30 September 1928 she stepped before a fuzzy mechanical eye and became the first human face ever broadcast on television. Bad investments devoured her savings; in 1935 she filed for bankruptcy. London welcomed her back, but casting offices did not. Headlines jeered in 1942 when she pinched biscuits from a shop—hunger masquerading as scandal. War years found her touring camps, belting songs for soldiers. Arthritis, her final enemy, twisted her hands and confined her to a wheelchair. She died alone on 7 January 1960, sixty-five years after that disputed Kerry sunrise.