Peggy Ann Garner

The daughter of an ambitious "stage mother," Peggy Ann Garner worked as a model and in summer stock before her sixth birthday. At seven she arrived in Hollywood, appearing briefly in several films; by the early '40s she showed a strong acting talent in larger roles. For her work at age 13 in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn she won a special Oscar as the "Outstanding Child Performer of 1945." Most of her later roles, however, were unrewarding, and her film career all but ended in the early '50s. In 1950 she debuted on Broadway, appearing in many plays in New York and on tour; she also eventually did much work on TV, appearing in TV dramas and series episodes and enjoying a very brief run in a Saturday-afternoon sitcom on ABC called Two Girls Named Smith (1951). By the late '60s she had given up her acting career, though she went on to appear prominently in Robert Altman's film A Wedding (1978). She married and divorced actors Richard Hayes and Albert Salmi, and died of pancreatic cancer at age 52.