Film star Diana Serra Carri and her childhood star photos.
Beijing News (reporter Teng Chao) According to foreign media reports, the child star Diana Serra Cary, known as "Baby Peggy" during the Hollywood silent film period, died on February 24, local time, at the age of 101. Before Shulan Temple, Diana Serra Carri was the most famous child star of hollywood's silent film era, earning about $1 million a year.
Cary was born in California on October 26, 1918. Her father, Jack Montgomery, was a cowboy and stuntman in early films and a stand-in for cowboy star Tom Meeks. When Cary was 19 months old, her mother was "spotted" by a director who was looking for a little baby to pair with "Fantastic Dog" Brownie when she took her to Century Square on Sunset Boulevard. Carriy's father and director struck a deal to have his daughter, Carrie, make a movie for $7.50 a day — double the amount his father earned as a stand-in for Western star Tom Meeks. As a result, Cary appeared with the beagle in the 1921 short films Playmate, Brownie's Little Venus, and Brownie's Doll.
Between 1921 and 1924, Carrie starred in as many as 150 short films and several popular feature films (though most of her films have been lost, many of which were burned down in a studio fire in 1926). She also played Little Red Riding Hood in the 1922 short film Little Red Riding Hood. Her film career began to take off, becoming the most popular child star of the time, and the designers built a doll based on her. In 1924, at the age of 6, Carrie attended the Democratic Convention in New York with Franklin D. Roosevelt, who had not yet run for president.
Cary's child star photo.
At the time, Carrie was making $1 million a year and was worth $4 million by the time she was 10, but her parents thought their daughter's career in Hollywood was timeless and did not save her income, much of it squandered. In 1924, her father and manager got into a dispute with the producers, causing her million-dollar contract with Universal to end abruptly. This, coupled with the fact that a relative who later worked with her production company stole all their money, plunged the family into poverty.
Carrie tried to continue her career in vaudeville and returned to Hollywood. But with the popularity of sound films in the late 20s, the studio wasn't interested in silent film actresses, and her film career didn't last long, only starring in a few smaller roles in some of the '30s. In 1939, Cary disappeared.
In 1928, Cary married actor Gordon Ayers, and 10 years later the two divorced, becoming a book buyer at the University of California. After remarrying, she became a magazine writer and journalist. In the 1970s, Cary wrote a number of books about early cowboy films and Hollywood child stars. In 1996, she published her autobiography, What Happened to Baby Peggy? 》。 In 2012, some directors also made a documentary with her as the protagonist, "Baby Peggy, the Elephant in the Room".
Beijing News reporter Teng Chao
Edited by Huang Jialing Proofreader Lucy