The Legend of Peg Entwistle
Image credit James Zeruk, Jr.
Last Saturday, September 16th, was the 91st anniversary of a tragic event that has etched its mark deep into the history of Los Angeles. It is a tale that weaves together fame and despair, the origin of an American narrative, and the birth of an icon: The Hollywood Sign. Today, we embark on a journey to uncover the story of Peg Entwistle – a story that haunts us in more ways than one.
The Rise of a Tragic Trope
Peg Entwistle was a talented actress whose name may not ring familiar to most. Yet, her story is one that resonates deeply within the annals of Tinseltown's lore. Born in Wales, she fell in love with the theater working on the stage throughout the latter half of the 1920’s. In 1925 she starred as Hedvig in the 1925 production of Henrik Ibsen’s The Wild Duck – a performance which Bette Davis saw and often claimed it was Peg’s performance in this production that inspired her to become an actress.
In 1932, at the age of 24, she landed her breakthrough film role in Thirteen Women, alongside Myrna Loy and Irene Dunne. The movie was met with mixed reviews upon release but later gained cult status due to its eerie parallels with Peg's own tragic fate.
The plot followed thirteen women who received mysterious letters predicting their deaths, ultimately leading some to believe in an eerie curse surrounding its production. As whispers circulated about Peg's involvement in such a vengeful tale, public intrigue grew. The film was not particularly successful but the timing of its release and some of its subject matter, as we’ll discuss below, doomed the picture, and Peg.
The last of a string of personal and professional insults, the studio let Peg go after the film’s reception and on September 16th, 1932, Peg Entwistle climbed to the top of the “H” of the now iconic Hollywood Sign, looked out over the city and leapt to her death.
A Narrative Is Born
When you hear about Peg’s story even today, it’s not often mentioned that Peg was already a successful Broadway actress before Thirteen Women. Unfortunately, she married a drunk whose inebriation not only cost him his job as an actor but brought scandal to Peg’s reputation as well. His out-of-control behavior consistently made the papers as he would show up drunk while she was performing and this ultimately led to her employer, the New York Theater Guild, bumping her from leading roles.
But after her suicide, newspapers and tabloids got to work on revealing the darkness beneath the glitz and glamor of Hollywood and especially what lies in wait for ambitious young women, blondes in particular. They left out her years of success as a Broadway actress and a trope was born: the ambitious blonde bombshell desperate for success and her untimely demise.
From Jean Harlow (who was the original “Blonde Bombshell” and “Platinum Blonde” but died 5 years after Entwistle in 1937) and Veronica Lake, to Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield, and Grace Kelly, to Anna Nicole Smith and Brittany Murphy, just to name a few… After Peg Entwistle, the industry became synonymous with devouring its young female stars and starlets.
And it’s true, Hollywood did and does devour its young female stars. But the tabloids are part of this story too as their 100-year proclivity of serving up corpses to an insatiably necrophagic and tut-tutting public clearly shows.
In addition to not being commercially successful, Thirteen Women, dealt with themes considered controversial by the heartland audience, including, of course, America’s long-standing twin bugaboos, occultism and lesbianism.
Cincinnati Enquirer article after Peg’s suicide. Image Credit Dltjrrb1122
With these latest career problems Peg moved back in with her aunt and uncle in Beachwood Canyon where she had grown up with her brothers after her father died.
It was here that as a child she had watched the large trucks and tractors pass by her front porch hauling the letters for the sign up to Mt. Lee. She and her brothers would often climb the letters “like they were a jungle gym” (Zeruk) from this home.
To place the story of her suicide in the context of the time, Peg Entwistle’s death came the decade following the Fatty Arbuckle trials 1921-22. Arbuckle’s salacious trials gave birth to the celebrity scandal and provided fodder for the newspapers and tabloids purporting to reveal the dark underbelly of debauchery and decadence of “the real Hollywood.”
Under fire for being morally depraved the studio cut ties with Peg as a symbolic way of washing their hands of the controversy. A fascinating story but beyond the scope of this post, this was the period right before the industry instituted the self-policing Hays Code in 1934.
Always on the lookout for opportunities to relive their glory days on the Arbuckle beat and rekindle the trope of the darkness beneath the glitz and glamor, Entwistle’s suicide fit the mold.
Even today Peg’s story is often presented as a morality play warning off young dreamers all too willing to sacrifice everything for fame and fortune. Such stories note that climbing the “H” of the Hollywood Sign was a profound symbol of this desperate reaching for the promise of the movies. There’s just one problem. The iconic Hollywood Sign as such, didn’t exist yet.
An Icon Is Born
When Hollywood was still Hollywoodland - a real estate marketing gimmick.
When Peg Entwistle climbed the 50-foot-tall “H” to take her life, she wasn’t climbing the “Hollywood Sign” as we know it today. At the time it was still the Hollywoodland sign – a marketing gimmick created by real estate developers trying to sell the chaparral-and-sage-scrub-studded slopes above the little town of Hollywood.
On it 4000 light bulbs visible across the Los Angeles basin flashed separately: HOLLY – WOOD – LAND. And then all at once HOLLYWOODLAND. The “LAND” portion of the sign wouldn’t be removed until 1949.
Before that night the sign didn’t represent the industry of moviemaking. But after that night it was engulfed in this now classic trope of “the dark underbelly of the land of glitz and glamor” and ever after came to symbolize the movies – both the glitter and the doom.
Ghosts in the Machine
Now part of Griffith Park, those visiting the Hollywood Sign may encounter ghost stories surrounding the legend of Peg Entwistle, some claiming to hear her voice, or see a vague figure dressed in 1930s attire wandering melancholically just over the next ridge, or even dressed in white plunging repeatedly from the sign on moonlit nights.
Another legend claims the smell of gardenias wafting down on Santa Ana winds typical of mid-September nights (or at least, they used to be) are evocative of her supernatural presence because this was the scent of her favorite perfume.
But there are two other ways that Peg Entwistle continues to haunt Hollywood today: one as the mold of the blonde bombshell meeting her untimely demise and one as the protagonist whose personal tragedy is responsible for the birth of the Hollywood Sign as the geographic icon of the movie machine.
Learn More
If you are intrigued by Peg Entwistle's story and wish to delve deeper, there are a number of resources available. James Zeruk Jr.'s meticulously researched book, Peg Entwistle and the Hollywood Sign Suicide: A Biography offers a comprehensive exploration of Peg's life, career, and tragic end. This book goes beyond the sensational headlines, presenting a nuanced portrait of a young successful actress caught in the unforgiving machinery of Hollywood. The podcast, "You Must Remember This" by Karina Longworth, has an episode dedicated to Peg as part of her “Dead Blondes” 11-part series which is beyond brilliant and highly recommended.
