Before me, no one ... not even her family ... had enough to do a book about Peg Entwistles life, career, and death. The most anyone could have done--and did do--was include a chapter of her in an anthology, mention her in passing in a book, or an episode of a TV show about “tragic actresses” or scandalous and unusual Hollywood deaths. Before me, NO ONE ever—not once—got it right about Peg Entwistle; not the media; not the tour guides; not Hollywood or Broadway historians, and not even her brothers. Hell, on E! Mysteries and Scandals, Pegs brothers Milt and Bobby were in error about her stage career (for instance, they confused Laurette Taylor for Billie Burke). For most of three quarters of a century Peg’s story was a contrived, convoluted, contradicted jumble of conjecture, myths and gossip which was copied and pasted or plagiarized from one writer or short filmmaker or journalist to another. Before me, Pegs Wikipedia was a few paragraphs of gossip and speculation and there was no photo. Today, it is a rather fine article that is about 85% constructed out of MY research and MY contributions and that is MY photo from MY personal playbill collection you see there. Because of MY research into Pegs career and personal life, and MY having found Pegs surviving brother, the documentary Under the Hollywood Sign has a more accurate portrayal of Peg and her last walk. Before me, no one was willing to write a definitive biography or able to script a major motion picture or stage production. If an author or company had tried, they would have had nothing but a work of speculation lacking depth and soul. I am her biographer. I discovered so much about her career and personal life that her brother Milton remarked, “You know more about her than we do. Indeed, while I stayed with him as his guest, it was I who shared the most stories about her to her own family! True, no one could have written her biography without the family archives, but they had no real clue what most of the letters and documents meant, or what the notes from Broadway people to Peg meant or who the people that wrote them were, or what the little scribbles in her aunt’s diary indicated. For decades and decades Peg Entwistles life, career, and death were mostly a mystery to even her family, and no one .... NO ONE ... bothered to dig and dig and dig and dig like I did for SIX YEARS OF MY LIFE—every day, from morning unto the wee hours until my eyes have now lost much vision from staring at tens of thousands of pages of microfilm in search of even one line related to Peg. Before me, no one had cared enough to try--not her family, not the best authors and film historians, and no TV show or film producers were willing to risk a production based on the flimsy information available. Yes, Peg Entwistle is a public figure, but NO ONE except yours truly bothered to find out who she really was and NO ONE but yours truly was able to solve the mysteries behind her pathos, suicide, and suicide note and present it all in such a way as to “bring her back to life.” If anyone had had enough for a book, play, or film, they would have published or produced BEFORE MY BOOK AND ORIGINAL RESEARCH came to light. But now there are Peg Entwistle projects rising up all over the world and while my fingerprints are surely there, credit to me is scarce—if there be any at all (you kind exceptions know who you are, and I thank you for the nod). So, yeah, as a matter of fact I do claim the right to Peg Entwistles story. And damn it, Im going to have a say about her in every reputable project from here on in, so help me God. (color image by Ron Erb)
Posted on: Sat, 20 Sep 2014 02:11:10 +0000
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