Peggy Dow
American actress
Peggy Dow (born Peggy Josephine Varnadow; March 18, 1928) is an American philanthropist and former actress who had a brief (1949–1952) career in Hollywood at Universal Studios starring in films during the Golden Age Era in the late 1940s and early 1950s. She is perhaps best known for her roles as Nurse Kelly in Harvey (1950) and Judy Greene in Bright Victory (1951).
Early life
Born in Columbia, Mississippi, at the age of 4 she moved with her family to Covington, Louisiana. She attended high school and junior college at Gulf Park College in Gulfport, Mississippi (now the Gulf Park campus of the University of Southern Mississippi), then finished college at Northwestern University in Illinois, appearing in college plays and receiving her degree from Northwestern's School of Speech in 1948.
Career
After brief modeling and radio experience, Dow was spotted by a talent agent and cast in a television show in February 1949. Shortly after that exposure, Universal offered her a seven-year contract. Dow made nine films, most notably as Nurse Kelly in Harvey (1950), starring James Stewart and Josephine Hull, and co-starring with Best Actor Oscar nominee Arthur Kennedy in Bright Victory (1951). After being featured in several crime dramas, Dow had starring roles in two 1951 family films, Reunion in Reno and You Never Can Tell.
Dow retired after three years in the business to marry Walter Helmerich III, an oil driller from Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1951. He became president of his family's business, Helmerich & Payne.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Peggy Dow” as american actress. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as american actress. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1340808. VIAF identifies the subject as 29731601. The Library of Congress control number is n78057999. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1928, 1949, 1952 and 1950.
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This entry incorporates text from “Peggy Dow” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.