Peggie Castle Profile

Peggie Castle

	(Peggy Thomas Blair)
22 December 27	is born in Appalachia, Virginia, to Doyle H. and Elizabeth G. Blair. Her father is director of industrial relations for a large corporation and will become an entertainment business manager.
?	attends private school in Pittsburgh
36	her family begins a series of moves. Finally, her father becomes studio manager of the Goldwyn Studios, and they settle in Hollywood.
?	attends Hollywood High School
?	lying about her age, she gets some modeling assignments
?	during the summer of her fourteenth year, she works as an usherette at the Hollywood Bowl
44	moves with her family to Oakland, where she enrolls in Mills College
	during her sophomore year she wins the school’s highest scholastic award
	leaves Mills College after two years to appear on the radio soap opera “Today’s Children” for $375 a week
c. 46	marries Los Angeles businessman Revis T. Call. He's about 25; she's 19.
?	adopts the professional name Peggie Call
49	is spotted by an agent while eating a shrimp cocktail at the seafood bar in the Farmer’s Market, which leads to a screen test at 20th Century-Fox. Her partner in the test is young actor John Russell.
c. 49	is signed to a contract with Universal-International. On her first day at the studio, she falls in love at first sight with casting director Robert H. Rains.
July 49	the press reports that she has no choice when studio bosses ask her for a bit of leg art publicity. There's a clause in her contract that requests her to pose for such cheesecake shots if the company feels they will advance her screen career.
September 49	receives the title of "Miss Classy Chassis" from members of the United Auto Workers Union of seven western states
October 49	is elected "Miss Cheesecake" by the Pacific Coast Restaurant Convention delegates. She's presented with an antique teapot by the national association.
May 50	is Audie Murphy's girl of the moment
Mid-August 50	dines with Murphy at the Brown Derby when Audie is taken very ill with a malaria attack. "When I arrived Audie was at the table and he just couldn't move," she says, "he was so sick. I called a doctor who gave him some shots and put him to bed. But he got worse and it took two people to hold him down."
October 50	she and Audie Murphy have shelved it
?	she and her estranged husband, Revis Call, are back together and dropping divorce plans. She dated Audie Murphy until landing that big a role in The Prince Who Was a Thief.
50	divorces Call after five years of marriage. Call wie die at age 81 in 2002 in California.
November 50	acquires the title "Miss Jet Job" when air cadets see her "aerodynamically perfect lines." She films Air Cadet, a jet pilot training picture, at Williamsfield, Arizona.
51	along with Piper Laurie, Mona Freeman, Barbara Payton, Mala Powers, and Barbara Bates, she is chosen as the Hollywood Press Association’s “Baby Star”
4 January 51	marries Universal-International casting director Robert H. Rains in Juarez, Mexico
April 51	is borrowed from Universal-International by producers Bruce Manning and Jack H. Skirball for a role in Payment on Demand. It's her first real chance, playing Bette Davis' sophisticated young daughter, and she turns in a job that definitely stamps her for future stardom.
May 51	advertises for MJB coffee. "Peggie Castle knows: 'You can't make a bad cup of M.J.B.'"
June 51	was dropped by Universal-International, but now they want her back to appear in Son of Ali Baba
Early 50s	is a lonely and not-so-happy person despite being married to a wonderful guy
53	signs with United Artists Studios for seven pictures
June 53	says that women like rough, tough men. She gives the Caspar Milquetoasts the quick brush-off and advises young gallants to boss their women around. "Wishy-washy poetry-scouting lovers get the Hollywood horse laugh," she claims.
July 53	goes to New York to publicize I, the Jury
4 January 54	she and Rains separate
January 54	promotes her upcoming The Long Wait saying, "Let's face it. Nobody likes nice women on the screen. Nice women are dull."
February 54	is dated by assistant director Bill McGarry since the separation from his wife, Gail McGarry. Gail says she won't give her husband a divorce and, if he attempts to get one, she will file a cross complaint.
April 54	speaks against her swimming scene in Yellow Tomahawk. She talks around town that she's going to compel producer Aubrey Schenck to do something about the sequence in which Rory Calhoun catches her swimming in a river and declines to leave. At the request of the Johnston Office, the Technicolor scene was printed darker. She says darker or lighter, it shows too much of her. In 1989, Jackie Rife remembers having been her swim-in at the Kanab, Utah, location.
29 April 54	wins a divorce from casting director Robert H. Rains in Santa Monica, California, charging cruelty. She testifies he said her acting style "went out with Mary Pickford." He's 33; she's 26. Rains will become the steady of actress Arleen Whelan in 1955 and will marry singer-starlet Julie Van Zandt in 1958.
May 54	is considered for the new Lorelei Kilbourne in a new batch of "Big Town" telefilms. Jess Barker tests to replace Pat McVey as Steve Wilson.
June 54	she and McGarry are among the ringsiders when Dorothy Arnold opens at the Players. Brad Dexter and Marilyn Sweeney sit next to them.
	McGarry's wife, Gail, gets her divorce, with alimony and property settlement
August 54	visits McGarry at the Jackson Hole, Wyoming, location of Blue Horizon
November 54	columnist Walter Winchell reports that she and McGarry are "Aisle-Be-Seeing-You"
February 55	will marry McGarry in June and hopes to honeymoon in Acapulco. Her divorce from Bob Rains will be final in March; Bill will be free in May.
May 55	is on location filming for The White Orchid in Papantla, Mexico, home of the Totonac Indians
June 55	tells columnist Jimmy Fidler that she will marry McGarry around June 15. They will honeymoon in Mexico.
July 55	the press calls her "the poor man's Claire Trevor," playing the inevitable blonde in distress
	columnist Erskine Johnson announces she will marry Bill McGarry in August. They will honeymoon in Europe, where Bill's working in a new Spencer Tracy film, The Mountain.
?	marries her assistant director in Overland Pacific, William McGarry. He’s 22 years her senior.
November 55	can't do any more Mike Hammer pictures, because she was killed off in the first one, I, the Jury. But since The Long Wait, another Mickey Spillane story, doesn't involve Mike Hammer, Victor Saville puts her into the picture as one of the four girls in Tony Quinn's life. The gals, incidentally, all have the same physical measurements.
December 55	films Target Zero entirely on location at the Army's Fort Carson, Colorado, under what is technically termed "simulated combat conditions." The Army, cooperating with Warner Brothers, in one instance loans 1,700 men for an important combat scene.
56	with actresses Dolores Donlon and Shawn Smith, she’s caught dining at Toots Shor
April 56	is picked as the "Ideal Hollywood Secretary" by the film capital's Chamber of Commerce. She wins the nod for her secretarial role in Miracle in the Rain.
57	is off to Britain for the filming of The Counterfeit Plan
October 57	is home after playing the feminine lead opposite Mario Lanza in Seven Hills of Rome, but her husband, Bill McGarry, has to linger in Paris. Bill, who worked behind the camera with MGM's Gigi company in Paris, can't return until the studio finds a company to insure $750,000 worth of film which MGM has developed in Europe. Few planes fail to get through these days, but this is a big sum. Peggie gives glowing reports of Mario's new picture. She says she will open Christmas week at the Music Hall in New York. She also relates some almost unbelievable statistics about Mario's capacity to gain weight when he lets himself go.
October 59	says in a publicity release about her singing on ABC-TV's "Lawman: "Good heavens, I'd never sung in my life. Not even in the bathtub and all of a sudden I find myself singing in about every third episode of the program."
July 60	confirms that ABC is talking about a Lily album with her singing from "Lawman"
September 60	she and "Lawman" co-star Peter Brown make a person appearance at the New Mexico State Fair
November 61	the press heralds that she is an avid art collector. "There are only 16 Rembrandts in existence - and 23 of them are in the United States."
July 62	says she put a lot of thought into shaping Lily Merrill, her character on the "Lawman" series. "I've tried to give Lily the glamour and presence of the famous English actress Lily Langtry, and the fire and sexiness of the one and only Maria Montez, famous dancer of the turn of the century."
6 January 63	her daughter, Erin K., is born in Los Angeles
January 70	divorces William McGarry in Los Angeles. McGarry will die at age 71 in 1979 in California.
?	develops a serious drinking problem and gradually slips away from reality
17 October 70	marries businessman Arthur S. Morgenstern in Los Angeles. He's 39; she's 42.
April 73	her mother dies
30 April 73	becomes the widow of Morgenstern, who dies in Los Angeles
?	is discharged from Camarillo State Hospital
10 August 73	as Peggy S. Morgenstern, she dies at age 45 in the Hollywood apartment of her second husband, producer William McGarry, at 1801 North Grace Avenue, while sitting on the couch in the living room / is found sitting on a couch in the living room by her former husband, William McGarry. There apparently was reconciliation underway with McGarry. The couple's daughter, Erin McGarry, lives in Huntington Beach.
11 August 73	the coroner reports that she died of a heart attack caused by hardening of the arteries of the heart. The autopsy is performed by deputy coroner Richard Ponds.

Sources: "Green Eyes Crying" by David J. Hogan and Ted Okuda in Filmfax, The Film Encyclopedia by Ephraim Katz, Picture Show Who's Who on the Screen, Fallen Angels by Kirk Crivello, Nevada State Journal, The Monessen Daily Independent, Syracuse Herald-Journal, The Dothan Eagle, Mansfield News-Journal, The Zanesville Signal, The Era, The Bridgeport Post, Chronicle-Telegram, The Lethbridge Herald, The Intelligencer, Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune, Indiana Evening Gazette, Statesville Record & Landmark, The Newark Advocate, The Hammond Times, Dixon Evening Telegram, Valley Morning Star, The Bridgeport Telegram, Ironwood Daily Globe, The Vidette-Messenger, Appleton Post-Crescent, Deming Headlight, The Lima News, Chronicle-Telegram, Van Nuys News, "Donna Martell" in Science Fiction and Fantasy Film Flashbacks by Tom Weaver, www.Ancestry.com
Recommended Books:
Links: Filmography The Peggy Castle Tribute Page at the Spooky Tom's Nightmare Mansion Site Peggie Castle at Wanted Cowgirls