Peg Entwistle

Millicent Lilian "Peg" Entwistle (5 February 1908 – 16 September 1932) was a British stage and screen actress. She began her stage career in 1925, appearing in several Broadway productions. She appeared in only one film, Thirteen Women, which was released posthumously.

Peg Entwistle
Entwistle from Just to Remind You theatrical production (1929)
Born
Millicent Lilian Entwistle

(1908-02-05)5 February 1908
Port Talbot, Glamorgan, Wales
Died16 September 1932(1932-09-16) (aged 24)[1]
Hollywood, California, U.S.
Cause of deathSuicide
Resting placeOak Hill Cemetery, Glendale, Ohio, U.S.
NationalityBritish
Other namesThe Hollywood Sign Girl[2]
OccupationActress
Years active1925–1932
Known forSuicide by jumping off the Hollywoodland Sign
Spouse(s)
​
(
m. 1927; div. 1929)

Entwistle gained notoriety after she jumped to her death from atop the "H" on the Hollywoodland sign in September 1932, at the age of 24.

Early life

Born Millicent Lilian Entwistle in Port Talbot, Glamorgan, Wales, to English parents Emily Entwistle (née Stevenson) and Robert Symes Entwistle, an actor, she spent her early life in West Kensington, London.[3]

It is often reported that her mother died when she was very young, but there is no documented evidence supporting this. There is, however, a Last Will and Testament dated 15 December 1922, in the Entwistle family archives, in which Robert Entwistle specifically stated the following:

Millicent Lilian Entwistle is the daughter of my first wife whom I divorced and the custody of my said daughter was awarded to me. I do not desire my said daughter to be at any time in the custody or control of her said mother.[4]

Peg Entwistle reportedly immigrated to America, sailing from Liverpool aboard the S.S. Philadelphia in 1916, and settled in New York City.[5] However, documents and photographs made available by the Entwistle family for a biography state that Entwistle and her father were in Cincinnati, Ohio, and New York City in early spring 1913. This information is also backed up in the Internet Broadway Database, and The New York Times, where Robert S. Entwistle is listed in the cast of several plays in 1913.[6]

In December 1922, Robert Entwistle died, the victim of a hit-and-run motorist on Park Avenue and 72nd Street in New York City.[7] Peg and her two younger half-brothers were taken in by their uncle, who had come with them to New York and was the manager of Broadway actor Walter Hampden.[8]

Broadway

By 1925, Entwistle was living in Boston as a student of Henry Jewett's Repertory (now called the Huntington Theatre) and was one of the Henry Jewett Players, who were gaining national attention. Walter Hampden gave Entwistle an uncredited walk-on part in his Broadway production of Hamlet, which starred Ethel Barrymore.[9] She carried the King's train and brought in the poison-cup.[10]

Peg Entwistle in The Wild Duck, c. 1925

Entwistle, at age 17, played the role of Hedvig in a 1925 production of Henrik Ibsen's The Wild Duck. After seeing the play, Bette Davis told her mother, "I want to be exactly like Peg Entwistle."[11] Some years later, Broadway actress and director Blanche Yurka sent a note to Davis asking if she would like to play Hedvig, and Davis sent word back that ever since she had seen Entwistle in The Wild Duck, she had known she would someday play Hedvig. Through the years, Davis said Entwistle was her inspiration to take up acting.[11]

By 1926, Entwistle had been recruited by the New York Theatre Guild, and her first credited Broadway performance was in June of that year as Martha in The Man from Toronto, which opened at the Selywn Theatre and ran for 28 performances.[12] Entwistle performed in ten Broadway plays as a member of the Theatre Guild between 1926 and 1932, working with noted actors such as George M. Cohan, William Gillette, Robert Cummings, Dorothy Gish, Hugh Sinclair, Henry Travers and Laurette Taylor. Her longest-running play was the 1927 hit Tommy, in which she starred with Sidney Toler, which ran for 232 performances and became the play for which she was most remembered.[13]

In April 1927, Entwistle married actor Robert Keith at the chapel of the New York City Clerk's office.[14] She was granted a divorce in May 1929. Along with charges of cruelty, she claimed her husband did not tell her he had been married before and was father to a six-year-old boy, Brian Keith, who later became an actor.[13][15]

The play The Uninvited Guest closed after only seven performances in September 1927; however, The New York Times critic J. Brooks Atkinson wrote, "Peg Entwistle gave a performance considerably better than the play warranted."[16]

She went on tour with the Theatre Guild between Broadway productions. Changing characters every week, Entwistle garnered some publicity, such as an article in the Sunday edition of The New York Times in 1927[10] and another in the Oakland Tribune two years later.[17]

Aside from a part in the suspense drama Sherlock Holmes and the Strange Case of Miss Faulkner and her desire to play more challenging roles, Entwistle was often cast as a comedian, most often the attractive, good-hearted ingénue. In 1929, she told a reporter:

I would rather play roles that carry conviction. Maybe it is because they are the easiest and yet the hardest things for me to do. To play any kind of an emotional scene I must work up to a certain pitch. If I reach this in my first word, the rest of the words and lines take care of themselves. But if I fail, I have to build up the balance of the speeches, and in doing this the whole characterisation falls flat. I feel that I am cheating myself. I don't know whether other actresses get this same reaction or not, but it does worry me.[17]

In early 1932, Entwistle made her last Broadway appearance, in J. M. Barrie's Alice Sit-by-the-Fire,[18] which also starred Laurette Taylor, whose alcoholism led her to two missed evening performances and refunds to ticket-holders.[19][20] The show was cancelled, and in the aftermath, Entwistle and the other players were given only a week's salary, rather than a percentage of the box office gross, which had been agreed upon before the show opened.[21]

Hollywood

By May 1932, at the height of the Great Depression, Entwistle was in Los Angeles with a role in the Romney Brent play The Mad Hopes, starring Billie Burke,[22] which ran from 23 May to 4 June at the Belasco Theatre in downtown Los Angeles. Florence "Flo" Lawrence, theatre critic for the Los Angeles Examiner, gave the production a very favorable review:

Belasco and Curran have staged the new play most effectively and have endowed this Romney Brent opus with every distinction of cast and direction. (producer) Bela Blau ... has developed the comedy to its highest points. Costumes and settings are of delightful quality, and every detail makes the production one entirely fit for its translation to the New York stage. In the cast Peg Entwistle and Humphrey Bogart hold first place in supporting the star (Billie Burke) and both give fine, serious performances. Miss Entwistle as the earnest, young daughter (Geneva Hope) of a vague mother and presents a charming picture of youth...[23]

After The Mad Hopes closed, Entwistle won her first and only credited film role with Radio Pictures (later RKO). Thirteen Women stars Myrna Loy and Irene Dunne in a pre-Hays code, high-budget thriller produced by David O. Selznick and drawn from the novel by Tiffany Thayer. Entwistle played a small supporting role as Hazel Cousins.[24] It premiered on 14 October 1932, a month after her death, at the Roxy Theatre in New York City, and was released in Los Angeles on 11 November to neither critical nor commercial success. By the time it was re-released in 1935, 14 minutes had been cut from the film's original 73-minute running length. In 2008, Variety magazine cited Thirteen Women as one of the earliest "female ensemble" films.[25]

Death
Peg Entwistle at her Hollywood home several days before her death (courtesy James Zeruk Jr.)

On 18 September 1932, a woman was hiking below the Hollywoodland sign, when she found a woman's shoe, purse, and jacket. She opened the purse and found a suicide note, after which she looked down the mountain and saw the body below. The woman reported her findings to the Los Angeles police and laid the items on the steps of the Hollywood police station.[26]

Later, a detective and two radio car officers found the body in a ravine below the sign. Entwistle remained unidentified until her uncle, with whom she had been living in the Beachwood Canyon area, identified her remains. He connected her two-day absence with the description and the initials "P.E.," written on the suicide note, which had been published in the newspapers.[27] He said that on Friday, 16 September, she had told him she was going for a walk to a drugstore and to see some friends. The police surmised that instead she made her way to the nearby southern slope of Mount Lee to the foot of the Hollywoodland sign, climbed a workman's ladder to the top of the "H" and jumped.[27]

The cause of death was listed by the coroner as "multiple fractures of the pelvis."[28][27]

The suicide note, as published, read:

I am afraid, I am a coward. I am sorry for everything. If I had done this a long time ago, it would have saved a lot of pain. P.E.[29]

Entwistle's death brought wide and often sensationalized publicity. Her funeral was held at the W.M. Strathers Mortuary, in Hollywood, on 20 September.[30][31] Her body was cremated and the ashes were later sent to Glendale, Ohio, for burial next to her father in Oak Hill Cemetery, where they were interred on 5 January 1933.[32]

In 2014, roughly 100 people marked the anniversary of Entwistle's death by gathering in the parking lot of Beachwood Market in Hollywood, to watch Thirteen Women on an outdoor screen. Proceeds from a raffle and from food and beverages sold at the screening were donated to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention in Entwistle's name.[33]

Dory Previn sang about Entwistle in the song "Mary C. Brown and the Hollywood Sign," on her 1972 album of the same name.

Jakko Jakszyk's song "Damn This Town" (from his 1995 album Mustard Gas and Roses) mentions Entwistle and her suicide.

In 2015, French songwriter and musician Benoit Clerc composed and released "Peg est mon nom" ("Peg is my name"), a ballad sung by Camille Saillant. The song imagines Peg Entwistle standing atop "The big white letter H" as she wonders whether she will be remembered after her death.[34]

The season 11 episode of Ghost Adventures entitled "Haunted Hollywood" included a segment that investigated the Hollywood sign and talked about Entwistle's death.

The song "Lust for Life" by Lana Del Rey references the suicide of Entwistle. The song includes lyrics such as "climb up the H of the Hollywood Sign," and in the music video for the song, Del Rey and The Weeknd are seen dancing atop the "H" of the Hollywood Sign.[35]

Some have speculated that the 1977 Steely Dan recording "Peg" is about Entwistle; however, in 2000, during a question-and-answer session with fans, the band said the song was written about a real person but not Entwistle.[36] In 2020, Steely Dan cofounder Donald Fagen said, "There's no hidden meaning. We just wanted a dotted half note for that spot and Peg was short enough to fit with the music."[37].

Ryan Murphy's 2020 miniseries Hollywood revolves around the fictional production of a film, titled Peg, about Entwistle's acting career and suicide.[38]

The song "Gardenias" by Protest The Hero references the suicide of Entwistle as a symbol for the struggle of "making it" in Hollywood. The lyrics heavily feature alliteration on the letter "H" and contain several references to Entwistle's death, including the height of the Hollywood sign and the discovery of her remains by a hiker. The song appears on the album Palimpsest, which was released on 18 June 2020.

References and notes
  1. 16 September was surmised by police and is widely believed to be the date of her death. The body was found on the 18th of September.
  2. "Who Is The Real Peg Entwistle From Netflix's 'Hollywood' And What Happened To Her?". Women's Health. 1 May 2020. Archived from the original on 15 May 2020. Retrieved 19 May 2020.
  3. Owen, Martha (1 October 2011). "Death in Hollywood: the Peg Entwistle story". BBC News. Archived from the original on 19 May 2020. Retrieved 12 May 2020.
  4. Zeruk, Jr., James (25 October 2013). Peg Entwistle and the Hollywood Sign Suicide: A Biography. McFarland & Company. p. 35. ISBN 978-0786473137.
  5. List or Manifest of Alien Passengers of S.S. Philadelphia. 11 March 1916.
  6. Zeruk, Jr. 2013, p. 20.
  7. "ACTOR DIES; STRUCK BY AUTO THAT FLED; Robert S. Entwistle, Former Stage Manager for Charles Frohman, Dead in Hospital. INJURED ON ELECTION DAY Chauffeur, Who Sped Away After Looking at His Victim, Never Found" (PDF). The New York Times. 20 December 1922.
  8. Zeruk, Jr. 2013, p. 14; 33–35.
  9. Hamlet at the Internet Broadway Database
  10. "The Return of Marion Harris -- And Something About Al Sexton, Ida Mulle, Dorothy Stickney and Various Others". The New York Times. 20 February 1927.
  11. Chandler, Charlotte (10 March 2006). The Girl Who Walked Home Alone: Bette Davis, a Personal Biography. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-7432-6208-5.
  12. Atkinson, J. Brooks (18 June 1926). "The Play: Smart Comedy in June". The New York Times.
  13. "Girl Ends Life After Failure In Hollywood". Syracuse Herald-Journal. 20 September 1932. p. 5.
  14. NYC Marriage license No. 12687. 18 April 1927.
  15. "Pulled Hair - Stage Star Gets Divorce After Tale of Fight With Husband". The Pittsburgh Press. 3 May 1929. p. 47.
  16. Atkinson, J. Brooks (28 September 1927). "'Uninvited Guest' Falters". The New York Times.
  17. "English Actress With Guild". Oakland Tribune. 5 May 1929.
  18. Atkinson, J. Brooks (8 March 1932). "A Night of Barrie ... Alice Sit-by-the-Fire". The New York Times.
  19. "Two Barrie Revivals Suddenly Canceled". The New York Times. 15 May 1932.
  20. "Laurette Taylor Absent". The New York Times. 6 April 1932.
  21. Courtney, Marguerite (1 January 1955). Laurette. Rinehart & Company. p. 342. ASIN B0007DN520.
  22. Yeaman, Elizabeth (7 June 1932). "Guild Asks Consent of Il Dulce for Film". Hollywood Citizen-News.
  23. Lawrence, Florence (24 May 1932). "Mad Hopes New Triumph for Miss Burke Here". Los Angeles Examiner.
  24. Thirteen Women, RKO Pictures, 1932. In the film, a very short scene shows Hazel Cousins (played by Entwistle) murdering her husband with a knife. In Thayer's novel, the Hazel Cousins character is a lesbian who becomes heartbroken and starves herself to death in a sanitarium.
  25. Basinger, Jeanine (16 June 2008). "Few female ensemble films". Variety. Retrieved 18 September 2010.
  26. "Young Actress Ends Life In Hollywood". The Lewiston Daily Sun. 20 September 1932. p. 11. Archived from the original on 3 June 2016. Retrieved 13 May 2014.
  27. "Suicide Laid To Film Jinx". Los Angeles Times. 20 September 1932. pp. A1.
  28. County of Los Angeles Department of Public Health/Vital Statistics--Standard Certificate of Death #10501, sections 24-25; Filed 20 September 1932
  29. "Young Actress Ends Life In Hollywood". The Lewiston Daily Sun. 20 September 1932. p. 1. Archived from the original on 3 June 2016. Retrieved 13 May 2014.
  30. Ensley, Jim (4 December 1993). "Hollywood Has Share of Tragedy". The Calhoun Times. p. 9. Retrieved 13 May 2014.
  31. "Peg Entwistle Is Laid To Rest". Schenectady Gazette. 21 September 1932. p. 7. Retrieved 13 May 2014.
  32. Zeruk, Jr. 2013, p. 187.
  33. Lelyveld, Nita (17 September 2014). "A Hollywood tragedy, a neighborhood remembrance". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on 18 September 2014. Retrieved 19 September 2014.
  34. McKenzie, Maria (6 January 2014). "An Interview with Author James Zeruk, Jr". Provocative History: Laugh, Cry, Think... Retrieved 13 May 2020.
  35. Mench, Chris (20 April 2017). "How Lana Del Rey's 'Lust For Life' Connects To An Infamous Hollywood Suicide". Genius.
  36. Peg (song)#cite note-10
  37. Peg (song)#cite note-11
  38. Spencer, Samuel (5 May 2020). "'Hollywood' on Netflix: Is 'Meg' a Real Movie?". Newsweek. Archived from the original on 9 May 2020. Retrieved 5 May 2020.

Further reading
  • Zeruk Jr., James Peg Entwistle and the Hollywood Sign Suicide: A Biography (McFarland & Company 25 October 2013, ISBN 978-0-7864-7313-7)
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