Whatever Happened to Baby Peggy?: The Autobiography of Hollywood's Pioneer Child Star

Baby Peggy was Cary's (Hollywood's Children) moniker as Hollywood's first major child star; by the time she was three, in the early 1920s, she was already a millionaire. Cary ""grew up in Hollywood, having entered films in 1920, a mere eight years after it became the hub of movie-making. Its infancy was my own."" Here, she recounts her youthful enchantment with Tinseltown and the disillusionment that came as she aged and as her career, stymied by the advent of the talkies, crashed and burned. Although Cary doesn't dwell on her emotional scars, she's frank about the demanding side of being a child star, and about the difficulties of adjusting to everyday trials--which later in her life included dire poverty--after life as a celebrity. She also portrays the changes Hollywood underwent between the wars, when it became an American institution, and describes numerous encounters with the rich and famous (Cecil B. DeMille, Ronald Colman, etc.). Her honest, well-told account of her unusually rich life, as well as of Hollywood during its formative years, should interest even those who have never heard of Baby Peggy. Photos, not seen by PW. (Oct.)