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Baby Peggy's Playmates

© Jenny Lynn Higgins

Baby Peggy, Hollywood's very first child star, was nineteen months old when she was discovered sitting on an electrician's high stool on a movie set. Director Fred Fishbach literally stumbled onto her and instantly decided she would be the perfect star for his new film "Playmates". "Playmates" was the story of a baby and a dog - a comedy that Fishbach had written himself. Baby Peggy was first introduced to her co-star, Brownie (who was the star of Century Studio's "Wonder Dog" series) in Fred Fishbach's office. Their working relationship wasn't exactly love at first sight - when Brownie came near her, Peggy screamed in terror. Her father took her out of the office and explained that everything was O.K. - Brownie was a nice dog. Soon, the two small actors were playing together like old friends.

Peggy's father, Jack Montgomery, was a stunt man who earned seven-fifty a day (not a bad salary in the early 1900's). Julius Stern, the head of Century Studios, was prepared to pay Peggy twenty-five dollars for the five days it would take to film "Playmates". But Jack Montgomery wasn't satisfied. That was only five dollars a day. Montgomery told Fishbach that he was willing to take some time off of work to take Peggy to the studio, but he couldn't afford to lose two-fifty a day. Fishbach knew that Stern would never pay a child seven-fifty a day for a film. But he couldn't imagine anyone other than Peggy in his film. So he told Jack Montgomery that he would pay the extra twelve-fifty from his own pocket. There was no paperwork - only a handshake to seal the deal.

"Playmates" became very popular, and soon more "Baby Peggy" comedies were being shown in movie theatres. They were usually shown as "chasers" - short, two-reel films that were played as one audience was leaving and the next was arriving. On the movie lot, they were referred to as "five-day wonders". It cost the studio an average of three thousand dollars to produce a Baby Peggy film, but Century sold them to exhibitors at inflated prices and made huge profits.

One morning, after being Brownie's on-screen comedic partner for almost a year, Peggy arrived at the studio and was told that Brownie had died in his sleep. A star even before teaming up with Peggy, Brownie had debuted in Charlie Chaplin's 1918 film A Dog's Life, then gone on to star in the "Wonder Dog" series at Century. He died in 1922, in - according to dog years - his eighties.

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