If there is a literal poster child of the brightly-lit illusion of show biz, it has to be young Peg Entwistle.
She was born in Wales in 1908, to British parents, and her family came to America in 1912. By the 1920s, Peg had a stage career, but film was her major ambition. Unfortunately, movie stardom eluded her: she landed a bit part in a 1932 film called “Thirteen Women”. And that was all.
Eventually the resulting despondency and depression got the better of Peg, and on a late summer evening in 1932, Peg ventured out alone to a point on Mount Lee, above Santa Monica, to the 50-foot “Hollywood” sign (it read “Hollywoodland” back then). She found a workman’s ladder, and climbed to the top of the “H”, and leaped to her death. Later, a suicide note found in her purse read: "I'm afraid I'm a coward. I am sorry for everything. If I had done this thing a long time ago it would have saved a lot of pain. P.E." Peg was 24 years old. Unbeknownst to Peg, at the time of her death, a letter had been delivered to her home, offering her another bit part in a film: the part of a woman who commits suicide at the end of the third reel.
Peg’s story did not end with her untimely death, however. Her memory lingered with the superstitious Hollywood community, and does to this day. It’s even said that people light candles for her in local churches; she is considered the patron saint of Hollywood starlets – and unrealized potential… a spirit of what was, and what could have been.
