I’ll detail it all in her book. Oh, the note actually reads: “I am afraid I’m a coward…”; no comma after “afraid.”

This is a big deal in light of the context of the facts within my book’s narrative.

I am curious why you ignored her marriage to RK, though.

I saw the original 1hr 57min print and have the shooting scripts and production notes–Hazel’s lesbian affair is shown in the film. Peg was given 22 minutes of face time. She is the “star” in nearly the entire opening. After the first set-up page (establishing), she has dialogue in the next 21 pages of the script. Of course, now we see just the 3-plus minutes of her.

My book has three chapters dedicated to the production of “Thirteen Women” alone.

Also, RKO did option her. Oh, there are so many amazing things that will astound!

I like what you say about her place in history with the Sign. My book shatters the myths of her suicide, but will in no way diminsh the legend.

I have lived with Peg and her family for 5 years now. (Both figuratively and literally.) While her brother and niece have been a joy to know, Peg’s life and end have become a two-edged sword.

If not for my mentor, author Eve Golden, I would probably have climbed the damn Sign myself.

Again, thanks for writing a thoughtful, well-researched article about Babs. I sent the link to her family.

Wish I could tell you more–actually I can, but not here!

Please feel free to write me. You can see pics of me with her brother on my FaceBook, too.

Best to you–
James Zeruk Jr.

Have revised comp. & need to update all online pals’ you of course being among them BIG-TIME!

This topic onthe legendary H. Sign-(which most don’t know was built in 1923 & was revised to just “HOLLYWOOD” in 1949.

It’s like the seemingly always there Hollywood, Blvd & it’s “Walk-of-Fame”-(est in 1960 with *J. Woodward, as it’s debut “Star”)
H. Blvd was still present, it just hadnot established this idea by the HCOC-(Hollywood Chamber of Commerce) until that year for some reason? & it took until June of 1961 for them to install the initial (1,558) “Stars” a lot posthumously of course-(Fairbanks, Sr., Valentino, *Bogie, J.D., Harlow, Lombard, W.C. Fields, Tom Mix, & a lot more)

I’m positive the traig Peg Entwistle was touched on here.
It just may be more of “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” But, even the security guards-(with dogs,etc) often say there are off-the-wall rumblings around the area the actress jumped to her death in 1932. Who knows?
Closest I ever got to the sign was from “The Griffith Park 0bservatory” & depending on the fog/smog,etc you could barely see-it at night.

AGAIN, SUZIE PLEASE WRITE

& AGAIN I THANK YOU

Re: Private Factors in Entwistle’s Life
I also wondered if some aspect of Entwistle’s private rather than her professional life may have been a factor in her decision to take her life. Being a character actor fan, I noted that one of the few verifiable facts about the actress was her marriage from 1927 to about 1929 or 1930 to Robert Keith (1898-1966), a character actor, producer, director and playwright who had acted on Broadway in everything from Eugene O’Neill to Lillian Hellman plays during his long career. After having his own play “The Tightwad” produced briefly on Broadway in 1927 and in stock companies throughout the country, Keith was one of the Broadway veterans who was scooped up by Hollywood as a writer just as the Talkies began, working at Universal from the late ’20s through 1932 on several films, including the 1932 Tom Mix version of Destry Rides Again while also appearing in uncredited bit parts in movies. Perhaps their marriage was one of those that was a cause lost to jazz age impulsiveness, the separations that seemed inevitable in building any show biz career, or another factor. While we can’t know if this disappointment affected Peg Entwistle’s state of mind, it does seem that the young woman had endured more than a few cumulative losses in her private life with the death of family members and her divorce, perhaps contributing to some sense of isolation and instability, even though the dropped option at RKO hardly seems likely to have been as significant a factor from our viewpoint many years later.

Btw, Robert Keith is best remembered today as the father of actor Brian Keith, who was the only child of his marriage to stage actress Helena Shipman, which ended in 1926. The elder Keith is also noted for his excellent character work in films from the late ’40s and throughout the ’50s, including Fourteen Hours and Written on the Wind.

Re: Thirteen Women
I have seen the TCM print of the film and, while the novel it was based on may have had lesbianism as an explicit part of the storyline, that is only hinted at in the film when the characters refer to the exceptional closeness of the women as schoolgirls, those cryptic comments made by Hazel Cousins about “traveling with a friend”, and their warm exchanged expressions and linked arms as they watch the circus performance. There is literally nothing else to indicate that Hazel may have been conflicted by lesbianism that led to her murdering her husband and going bonkers. Maybe savvy pre-code audiences may have understood that something was going on and didn’t need it spelled out. If lesbianism is a part of the film, it is evident most of all in the behavior of the seductive Eurasian character played by Myrna Loy. Her part as a vengeful woman getting back at her former classmates for excluding her because of her mixed heritage manages to play on the pain of racism while piling on the clichés regarding “Orientals” and their arcane “black arts” that might threaten Western society.

When Myrna Loy (who has great fun in her part, despite the goofy plot and mixed message of racism) sidles up to her victims (both male and female), she uses her arcane powers to bend others to her will, they usually kill themselves once she is done toying with them–unless, of course, they have an iron will like lily white Irene Dunne–and they have Ricardo Cortez, as a smug policeman to assist them.

One of the frustrating aspects of this very brief movie is that, other than Loy and Irene Dunne, few of the other characters are on screen long enough to make much of an impression, though there is a morbid quality throughout the sketchy movie. The film may have been cut because of preview audience reactions, but I believe that it also may have been changed because RKO shifted the film’s emphasis to Dunne, cutting all the other character’s parts after the leading lady had a big hit earlier in September, 1932 in Universal’s Back Street (1932-John Stahl), just weeks before the general release of Thirteen Women.

Following up on Richard’s trilogy of doomed starlets, the one that springs to my mind is Barbara Payton, a fate brought on by much reckless behavior but a tragic story nonetheless.

I’d say False! The Hollywood Boulevard franchise of that (then) strictly West Coast chain of cafes opened its doors in July of 1927, before Peg had hit L.A. and obviously well before her death.

Keith: You are very kind.

Mattmann: I had not heard that about the Pig ‘n’ whistle. Seems a stretch but you never know.

NCeddie: I had not thought to make the connection between Uncle Harold and the letter “H.” He certainly tap-danced to the press after she died with all sorts of opinions on her state of mind and possible reasons for her suicide. Now, I am more suspicious that it had nothing to do with the direction of her career.
RHS: If you think of third starlet, let me know. I can’t think of any at this time.