Peggy Fears

Peggy Fears was born on June 1, 1903, in New Orleans, Louisiana, and died on August 24, 1994, in La Crescenta-Montrose, California, at the age of 91. She worked as a Broadway performer from 1917 to 1934 before transitioning into producing, and made a single film appearance as Gaby Aimee in The Lottery Lover in 1935.

Fears left New Orleans at sixteen and attended the Semple School. Her introduction to the professional stage came through an unlikely chain of events: Yale student Jock Whitney brought her to the Richman Club, where vocalist Helen Morgan heard her sing and urged her to audition for Florenz Ziegfeld. Her Broadway career began with Have a Heart in 1917 and encompassed ten productions in total. Among her verified credits are the Ziegfeld Follies of 1918, the musical Louie the 14th, the revue No Foolin' in 1926, the revue Rufus LeMaire's Affairs, the play A Divine Moment, and the Ziegfeld Follies of 1925. In No Foolin', she shared the stage with Edna Leedom, the Yacht Club Boys, and a chorus line that included Paulette Goddard, Susan Fleming, Clare Luce, and Baby Vogt. Actress Louise Brooks, writing for Sight and Sound in 1971, noted that Fears had transferred from Louie the 14th to the Follies and described her as possessing a sweet singing voice.

By 1932, Fears had moved from performing into producing. That year she produced Child of Manhattan, a play written by Preston Sturges. Working alongside her husband Alfred Cleveland Blumenthal, whom she married on June 19, 1927, she co-produced Music in the Air, the Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II musical that ran for 342 performances between 1932 and 1933.

Fears and Blumenthal had a turbulent marriage. Blumenthal accumulated fifteen million dollars during the first three years of their union, while Fears spent extensively, purchasing five Rolls-Royce automobiles and a sixty-five-thousand-dollar chinchilla coat, leaving only three hundred dollars in her bank account. The couple separated, reconciled, and renewed their vows in three separate ceremonies before permanently parting in 1950. Following the separation, Fears performed in nightclubs while Blumenthal relocated to Mexico. In 1938, her mother was found dead from gas asphyxiation.

Outside her stage career, Fears developed a significant real estate venture at Fire Island Pines, New York, where she built the area's original Yacht Club. The project included a cinderblock hotel that remained standing decades later. She invested ten thousand dollars and acquired an inlet on Great South Bay, paying off the last of her debt on the property in 1959, at which point it was valued at three hundred fifty thousand dollars. She sold her interest to John B. Whyte in 1966. During her years as a Fire Island resident, Fears had a romantic relationship with Tedi Thurman, known in the 1950s as the voice of Miss Monitor on NBC's Monitor program. Thurman was later interviewed about her relationship with Fears for Crayton Robey's 2003 documentary When Ocean Meets Sky, which features Sara Ramirez as the voice of Fears.

Those who knew Fears described her as bisexual or lesbian, with a primary preference for the company of women in her private life. Louise Brooks wrote that the two had been involved with each other, though Brooks did not allow the relationship to develop into a serious commitment. Brooks's 1971 account also described Fears's friendship with W.C. Fields, whom Fears introduced her to during their time together in the Follies.