Career Highlights: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Jane Eyre, The Pied Piper
First Major Screen Credit: The Pied Piper (1942)
Biography
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. ~ All Movie Guide
Kenyon Foster Brown (1964–1968) (divorced) Albert Salmi (1956–1963)
(divorced) 1 child
Richard Hayes (1951–1953) (divorced)
Peggy Ann Garner (February 3, 1932 – October 16, 1984) was an American actress.
A successful child actor, Garner played her first film role in 1938 and won the Academy Juvenile Award for her work in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945). Featured roles in such films as Black Widow (1954) did not further her attempts to establish herself in mature film roles, and although she progressed to theatrical work, she made relatively few acting appearances as an adult.
Born in Canton, Ohio, Garner's mother pushed her into the limelight, and entered her in talent quests while Garner was still a child. By 1938 she had made her first film appearance and over the next few years appeared in several more films including Jane Eyre (1944) and The Keys of the Kingdom (1944). She reached the height of her success at the age of 13 in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945) winning an Academy Juvenile Award largely on the basis of this performance.
Like many child performers, Garner was unable to make a successful transition into adult film roles. She guest starred steadily in television roles beginning in the early 1950s and continuing through the 1960s. After her film career ended, she ventured into stage acting and had some success, but also worked as a real estate agent and fleet-car executive between acting jobs in order to support herself. Her final screen performance was a small part in a made for television feature in 1980.
Personal life
Garner married singer/game show host Richard Hayes, and they divorced in 1953. She went on to marry actor Albert Salmi on May 16, 1956, and they divorced on March 13, 1963. Garner's final marriage was to Kenyon Foster Brown. After a few years, that marriage, too, ended in divorce. Her only child, Catherine Ann Salmi, died in 1995 at age 38 from heart disease.