Peggy Shannon

Peggy Shannon (born Winona Sammon; January 10, 1907^{[1] [2]} – May 11, 1941) was an American actress. She appeared on the stage and screen of the 1920s and 1930s.

Peggy Shannon
Portrait of Shannon by John de Mirjian
Born	Winona Sammon (1907-01-10)January 10, 1907 Pine Bluff, Arkansas, U.S.
Died	May 11, 1941(1941-05-11) (aged 34) North Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Resting place	Hollywood Forever Cemetery
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1923–1940
Spouses	Alan Davis ​ ​ (m. 1926; div. 1940)​ Albert G. Roberts ​ (m. 1940)​

Shannon began her career as a Ziegfeld girl in 1923 before moving on to Broadway productions. She was signed to Paramount Pictures and groomed to replace Clara Bow as the newest "It girl", whom she replaced in the 1931 film, The Secret Call. Her growing dependency on alcohol eventually derailed her career. She appeared in her final film Triple Justice in 1940. In May 1941, Shannon died at the age of 34 from a heart attack, brought on by alcoholism. Her husband Albert G. Roberts shot himself three weeks after her death.

Career

Shannon in 1930s

Shannon was born in Pine Bluff, Arkansas in 1907^[1][3] (some sources erroneously cite 1909^[4] or 1910^[5]) to Edward and Nannie Sammon. She had a younger sister, Carol. She attended Annunciation Academy Catholic School and Pine Bluff High School and then was hired as a chorus girl by Florenz Ziegfeld while visiting her aunt in New York in 1923.^[2] The following year, she was cast in the Ziegfeld Follies followed by a role in Earl Carroll's Vanities. While on Broadway in 1927, she was spotted by B.P. Schulberg, production head of Paramount Pictures, and was offered a contract. When she arrived in Hollywood, she was hailed as the next "It girl", replacing Clara Bow.^[6] Before the shooting of The Secret Call, Bow had suffered a nervous breakdown, and Shannon was hired to replace her only two days after her arrival in Hollywood.^[2][7]

Shannon sometimes worked 16-hour days (from 10 a.m. to 4 a.m. the next day) while shooting a film, and when shooting wrapped, rushed to begin another film. She occasionally worked on two separate films in one day. Through films and publicity, Shannon became known as a fashion plate, wearing styles three months before they became popular. In 1932, she signed a new contract at Fox and became known as difficult and temperamental on the set and was rumored to have had a drinking problem. In 1934, Shannon returned to New York City to do the Broadway show, Page Miss Glory.^[2]

In 1935, she continued on Broadway with The Light Behind the Shadow, but was soon replaced, with a press release claiming a tooth infection, though rumors claimed it was her drinking. In 1936, she returned to Hollywood with Youth on Parole. She found it harder to conceal her drinking. Fewer movie roles were offered, and her drinking worsened. She made her last film appearance in the 1940 film Triple Justice, opposite George O'Brien. ^{[citation needed]}

Personal life

In 1926, Shannon married actor Alan Davis. The marriage ended in July 1940. She married cameraman Albert G. Roberts, later that year.^[2][8]

Death

On May 11, 1941, Shannon's husband Albert Roberts and a fellow studio worker returned from a fishing trip to find Shannon dead in their North Hollywood apartment. She was slumped over the kitchen table, a cigarette in her mouth and an empty glass in her hand. She had been dead for approximately 12 hours. An autopsy revealed that she had died of a heart attack brought on by a liver ailment and a run-down condition.^[2]

She is interred at Hollywood Forever Cemetery. Three weeks after Shannon's death, her husband committed suicide by shooting himself with a .22 rifle in the same chair in which she had died. His suicide note read "I am very much in love with my wife, Peggy Shannon. In this spot she died, so in reverence to her, you will find me in the same spot."^[9]

Broadway credits

Date	Production	Role
October 20, 1923 - May 10, 1924	Ziegfeld Follies of 1923	Performer
January 11 - March 19, 1927	Piggy	Performer
February 21 - May 1927	What Ann Brought Home	Alma
October 6 - Oct 1927	High Gear	Florence Ainslee
November 26 - December 1928	Back Here	Sally
August 5 - August 1929	Now-a-Days	Jean Wing
November 11 - December 1929	Cross Roads	Dora
December 30, 1929 – January 1930	Damn Your Honor	Michel Du Fresne
December 22, 1930 – Jan 1931	Life Is Like That	Jane Barton
March 11 – March 1931	Napi	La George
November 27, 1934 - March 1935	Page Miss Glory	Gladys Russell
February 10 - February 1936	Alice Takat	Kitty Linderman

Filmography

Films

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1930	The Gob		Short film
1931	Opening Night		Short film
	The Meal Ticket	Friend	Short film
	The Secret Call	Wanda Kelly
	Silence	Norma Davis/Norma Powers
	The Road to Reno	Lee Millet
	Touchdown	Mary Gehring
1932	This Reckless Age	Mary Burke
	Hotel Continental	Ruth Carleton
	Society Girl	Judy Gelett
	The Painted Woman	Kiddo
	False Faces	Elsie Fryer
1933	Girl Missing	Daisy Bradford
	Deluge	Claire Arlington
	Devil's Mate	Nancy Weaver
	Turn Back the Clock	Elvina Evans Wright/Elvina Evans Gimlet
	Fury of the Jungle	Joan Leesom
1934	Back Page	Jerry Hampton
1935	Night Life of the Gods	Daphne Lambert
	Fighting Lady	Dora Hart
	The Case of the Lucky Legs	Thelma Bell
1936	The Man I Marry	Margot Potts
	Ellis Island	Betty Parker
1937	Romancing Along	Margot Potts
	Youth on Parole	Peggy
1938	Girls on Probation	Inmate Ruth	Uncredited
1939	Blackwell's Island	Pearl Murray
	The Adventures of Jane Arden	Lola Martin
	Fixer Dugan	Aggie Moreno
	The Women	Mrs. Jones	Uncredited
	Dad for a Day	Mary Baker
	The Amazing Mr. Williams	Kitty	Uncredited
1940	Cafe Hostess	Nellie
	The House Across the Bay	Alice
	All About Hash	Edith Henry	Short film
	Triple Justice	Susan

Footnotes

1. (Liebman 2003, p. 383)
2. "The Private Life and Times of Peggy Shannon". glamourgirlsofthesilverscreen.com.
3. (Springer & Hamilton 1974, p. 327)
4. (Halliwell & Walker 2003, p. 422)
5. (Donnelley 2003, p. 847)
6. (Brettell et al. 2006, p. 252)
7. (Soister 2004, p. 148)
8. (Starr 2001, p. 198)
9. (Frasier 2005, p. 267)

Sources

• Brettell, Andrew; Elder, Bruce; Imwold, Denise; Kennedy, Damien; King, Noel; Leonard, Warren Hsu; Miller, Toby; von Rohr, Heather (2006). Cut!: Hollywood Murders, Accidents, and Other Tragedies. Hauppauge, NY: Barrons Educational Series Publishing. ISBN 0-7641-5858-9.
• Donnelley, Paul (2003). Fade to black : a book of movie obituaries (2nd ed.). London: Omnibus. ISBN 0-7119-9512-5. OCLC 1280825683.
• Frasier, David K. (2005) [2002]. Suicide in the entertainment industry : an encyclopedia of 840 twentieth-century cases. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland. ISBN 978-1-4766-0807-5. OCLC 921143397.
• Halliwell, Leslie; Walker, John (2003). Halliwell's who's who in the movies (3rd ed.). London: HarperCollins Entertainment. ISBN 0-00-715085-7.
• Liebman, Roy (2003). Vitaphone Films: A Catalogue of the Features and Shorts. McFarland, Incorporated, Publishers. ISBN 978-0-7864-4697-1.
• Springer, John; Hamilton, Jack D. (1974). They had faces then : super stars, stars, and starlets of the 1930's. Castle. ISBN 978-089009568-3. OCLC 1285856401.
• Soister, John T. (2004). Up from the vault : rare thrillers of the 1920s and 1930s. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland Publishers. ISBN 0-7864-1745-5. OCLC 607451711.
• Starr, Jimmy (2001). Barefoot on barbed wire : an autobiography of a forty-year Hollywood balancing act. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press. ISBN 0-8108-3941-5. OCLC 604065135.

External links

• Peggy Shannon at the Internet Broadway Database
• Peggy Shannon at IMDb
• Peggy Shannon at AllMovie
• Peggy Shannon at the TCM Movie Database
• Peggy Shannon at Virtual History
• Peggy Shannon at Find a Grave