Peggy Wood
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Margaret Wood, known as Peggy Wood (February 9, 1892 - March 18, 1978) was an American actress of stage, film and television.
Born in Brooklyn, New York, Wood spent nearly fifty years on the stage, beginning in the chorus and becoming known as a Broadway singer and star. She made her stage debut in 1910 in the chorus of Naughty Marietta. In 1917, in Maytime, she introduced the song ‘Will You Remember’. She starred in several other musicals before playing Portia in a 1928 production of The Merchant of Venice. In the late 1920s and 1930s, she played lead roles in musicals staged in London and New York. In 1941, in the New York premiere of Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit, she portrayed Ruth Condomine - whose husband’s deceased first wife returns as an irritating ghost. Coward had originally written the part for Wood in the London based production in 1929.
Because of her stage career, Peggy did not make many films. She co-starred opposite Will Rogers in Handy Andy and was seen in the film Jalna. She also had a cameo in the 1937 film A Star is Born playing a receptionist at a movie studio who advises Janet Gaynor to go back home.
From 1949 to 1957, she played matriarch Marta Hansen, Mama, in the popular CBS television series Mama, based on the popular film I Remember Mama When General Foods cancelled the program there was so much protest CBS brought it back on Sunday afternoon, this time as a filmed series. But since they did not have that many clearances it was decided to put the show into syndication where it was a huge success. 26 episodes were filmed. By then Robin Morgan who played Dagmar left the series and she was replaced by Toni Campbell. Following "Mama", Wood was also seen in episodes of Zane Grey Theater and an episode of The Nurses which co-starred Ruth Gates, who played her sister Jenny on Mama.
She then co-starred with Imogene Coca in the Broadway play, The Girls in 509 which had a moderate run.
Because of her involvement in the theatre, she appeared in very few films. Her final screen appearance was as the gentle Mother Abbess in the 1965 film The Sound Of Music, for which she received an Academy Award nomination. Wood did not do her own singing in the film. It was dubbed by Margery McKay. She also speaks the final line of the movie--"What is this sin, my children?"
Peggy Wood also starred in the adaptation of the Biblical book of Ruth, The Story of Ruth.
In 1969 she joined the cast of the ABC-TV soap, One Life to Live as Dr. Kate Nolan and had a recurring role until the end of the year.
Wood received numerous awards for her theatrical work and for a while was president of American National Theatre and Academy (ANTA).
Wood married and was widowed twice. Her first husband, poet/writer John V.A. Weaver, died of tuberculosis at age 44 and her second, William Walling, an executive in the printing business, died in 1973 after 32 years. Wood herself died of a cerebral hemorrhage in Stanford, Connecticut.
