Mary Margaret (Wood) Walling (1892 - 1978)

Born 9 Feb 1892 in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, United States

Ancestors

Died 18 Mar 1978 at age 86 in Stamford, Fairfield, Connecticut, United States

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Biography

Peggy (Wood) Walling is Notable.

Mary Margaret "Peggy" Wood was born on 09 Feb 1892 in Brooklyn, New York City, New York and her parents were Eugene Wood (a journalist) and Mary Gardner (a telegraph operator).

She first married in 1924 to John Weaver (a poet & writer d: 1938) and in 1927 gave birth to her only child, David Weaver.

Her second marriage was in 1946 to William H. Walling who was an executive in the printing business. They were married for 27 years until his death in 1973.

She was an American actress of stage, film and television. She was a devout Episcopalian and a member of the Episcopal Actors Guild. Her final screen appearance was as Mother Abbess in "The Sound of Music" (1965), for which she was nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award.

She died at 86 years old on 18 March 1978 in Stamford, Connecticut.

Obituary

The New York Times newspaper of New York, New York, NY published her obituary by Robert D. McFadden on 19 Mar 1978 which mentioned ...

"Peggy WOOD,@86, Star in "Mama" TV Series

Appeared in More Than 70 Plays on Broadway in 60 Year Career -

Peggy Wood, the stage, screen and television actress who appeared in more than 70 Broadway productions and starred in the 1950s television series "Mama", died of a cerebral hemorrhage yesterday at Stamford (CT) Hospital. She was 86 years old and lived at Courtland Gardens, a Stamford retirement home.

In a career that spanned nearly 60 years, Wood was a versatile artist to shift it easily from musical comedy to operetta to dramatic productions and was also very much at home with Shakespeare, George Bernard Shaw, Sigmund Romberg and Noel Coward.

But while her portrayals on Broadway and in London were highly acclaimed, she was perhaps most widely known as the the mother of a Norwegian family in "Mama", a weekly fixture on CBS-TV from 1949 to 1957.

The show, based on Catherine Forbes book "Mama's Bank Account", and the play "I Remember Mama", was a running account of a Norwegian family's life and San Francisco in the early 1900s.

It was described by critics as a warm family entertainment - "as amusing as an old snapshot album come to life", as one put it.

Hailed by the Norwegians

The Brooklyn-born actress was hailed in Norway on visits there and in 1953 she received the Royal St.Olivia medal from King Haakon.

Wood also appeared in a number of films over the years and was nominated for an Academy award for best supporting actress in 1966 for her portrayal of the Mother Superior in 20th Century-Fox's "The Sound of Music".

She wrote numerous articles, mostly on the entertainment industry, for magazines and newspapers and was the author of several novels, including a 1941 autobiography called "How Young You Look" and a 1963 memoir of her career entitled "Arts and Flowers".

Though her last stage appearance was more than a decade ago - with Ethel Barrymore Colt in "A Madrigal of Shakespeare" in Westport, Connecticut in July 1967 - Wood continued to be active in the affairs of the American National theater and Academy, which she served as president from 1959 to 1966; of the Episcopal Actors Guild, as a vice president and of Actors Equity, as a council member.

Asked about her "retirement" some years ago by a reporter, she declared: "I have no idle hours. I'm in the theater."

Margaret Wood was born in Brooklyn on February 9, 1892, the daughter of Eugene and Mary (Gardner) Wood. Her father, a feature writer for "The New York World", had her take voice lessons to develop her obvious singing talents and had hoped for a career in opera for her.

First Appearance at 18

Her first stage appearance came at the age of 18 in 1910 in the chorus of Victor Herbert's new operetta, "Naughty Marietta". She took the stage name of Peggy because there were too many Margaret's in the cast. By 1917, she was starring in "Maytime" on Broadway.

Wood's many successes included ...

"Buddies" in 1919;

"Marjolaine" in 1922;

"The Clinging Vine" in 1922-23;

"Candida," in 1925;

"Trelawney of the Wells" with John Drew in 1926;

"The Merchant of Venice" with George Arliss in 1928

and Noël Coward's "Bitter Sweet" in London from 1929 to 1931.

During World War II, she starred in many shows for American troops stationed in England and France. After her long run on television as "Mama", she returned to Broadway, with Imogene Coca and "The Girls in 509" which ran in 1958-59.

She was married twice - to John VanAlstyn Weaver, the poet, novelist and playwright, who died in 1938 and two William A. Walling, a New York printing company executive, who died in 1973. She is survived by a son, David Weaver and three grandchildren."

Research Notes

Possible match, but not enough information to confirm ...

Passenger and Crew Lists 1909 for Margaret Wood-Weaver, New York, New York; :added by DKM Moseley-537 16:47, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

Sources

• "United States Census, 1900," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MSN8-KJG : accessed 8 October 2018), Margaret Wood in household of Eugene Wood, Borough of Brooklyn, Election District 1 New York City Ward 24, Kings, New York, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) 415, sheet 13A, family 279, NARA microfilm publication T623 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1972.); FHL microfilm 1,241,062.

• Peggy Wood on Wikipedia

• "Great Stars of the American Stage" by Daniel Blum, 1954 edition#2 profile#105 which mistakenly claims she was a direct descendant of Daniel Boone. She was actually not directly related to him because she was a descendant of a different BOONE immigrant ancestor.