The last star of the silent film era died yesterday at 101.
Diana Serra Cary started in films when she was 19 months old, as “Baby Peggy.” Like a lot of other child stars she was exploited, overworked, supported her entire family with her earnings, was considered “washed up” before she was 10 and was left with nothing as an adult. At 17 she ran away from home, knowing that her parents wanted her to work in films forever and she needed a way out.
She eventually married an artist, opened a bookstore, and became an author and historian. Her 1978 nonfiction book Hollywood’s Children traced the exploitation of child actors from the 1800s onward.
She also released Whatever Happened to Baby Peggy? a memoir of her child star years, pulling no punches on the abuse she suffered at the hands of her parents, directors and studios, who put her to work eight hours a day, six days a week and had her doing her own stunts before she was five. This scene here, from The Darling of New York? Not special effects. They actually put this small child in a burning room and she almost didn’t get out because they accidentally fired all the doors and windows.
In 2011 a documentary about her, The Elephant in the Room, was released. She released her last book, a novel, at the age of 100.
She never got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She’s not remembered much in film histories. But she was one of the pioneers, and with her, the last of the silent era stars is gone.
