Peggy Shannon

Peggy Shannon, born Winona Sammon on January 10, 1907, in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, was an American actress whose career spanned the stage and screen of the 1920s and 1930s. The daughter of Edward and Nannie Sammon, she grew up in Pine Bluff, where she attended Annunciation Academy Catholic School and Pine Bluff High School. She had a younger sister, Carol.

Shannon's entry into show business came in 1923, when a visit to her aunt in New York led to her being hired as a chorus girl by Florenz Ziegfeld. She went on to appear in the Ziegfeld Follies the following year and subsequently took a role in Earl Carroll's Vanities. Her Broadway career, which ran from 1923 to 1936, included productions such as Alice Takat, Napi, Life is Like That, Damn Your Honor, and Page Miss Glory.

In 1927, while working on Broadway, Shannon was noticed by B.P. Schulberg, the production head of Paramount Pictures, who offered her a contract. Upon arriving in Hollywood, she was positioned as the successor to Clara Bow as the studio's newest "It girl." When Bow suffered a nervous breakdown before production began on The Secret Call, Shannon was brought in as her replacement just two days after reaching Hollywood, starring in the 1931 film. Her working pace during this period was demanding, with shooting days that sometimes ran from 10 a.m. to 4 a.m. the following morning, and she occasionally worked on two separate productions in a single day. Through her film work and associated publicity, she became recognized as a fashion trendsetter, wearing styles as many as three months before they gained wider popularity.

In 1932, Shannon signed a new contract with Fox, though her time there was marked by a reputation for being difficult on set and by rumors of a drinking problem. She returned to New York in 1934 to appear in the Broadway production of Page Miss Glory, and in 1935 she was cast in The Light Behind the Shadow, though she was replaced during the run. A press release attributed her departure to a tooth infection, while rumors pointed to her drinking. Shannon returned to Hollywood in 1936 for Youth on Parole, but her alcohol dependency became increasingly difficult to conceal, and the number of film roles she was offered declined. Her final screen appearance came in the 1940 film Triple Justice, opposite George O'Brien.

Shannon married actor Alan Davis in 1926; that marriage ended in July 1940. Later that same year, she married cameraman Albert G. Roberts. On May 11, 1941, Roberts and a colleague returned from a fishing trip to find Shannon dead in their North Hollywood apartment, slumped over the kitchen table with a cigarette in her mouth and an empty glass in her hand. She had been dead for approximately twelve hours. An autopsy determined that she died of a heart attack brought on by a liver ailment and a run-down physical condition. She was 34 years old. Shannon is interred at Hollywood Forever Cemetery. Three weeks after her death, Roberts took his own life by shooting himself with a .22 rifle in the same chair in which she had died. His suicide note stated that he was deeply in love with his wife and chose to die in the same spot out of reverence for her.