Diana Serra Cary
American child film actress and silent film historian (1918–2020)
Diana Serra Cary (born Peggy-Jean Montgomery; October 29, 1918 – February 24, 2020), known as Baby Peggy, was an American child film actress, vaudevillian, author and silent film historian. She was the last surviving person with a substantial career in silent films.
Baby Peggy was one of the three major American child stars of the Hollywood silent film era along with Jackie Coogan and Baby Marie. Between 1921 and 1924, she made over 150 short films for the Century Film Corporation. In 1922, she received over 1.2 million fan letters and by 1924, she had been dubbed "The Million Dollar Baby" for her $1.5 million annual salary ($28.2 million in 2025). Despite her childhood fame and wealth, her parents mismanaged her finances and by the time she came of age she found herself poor and working as an extra by the 1930s.
Having an interest in both writing and history since her youth, Montgomery found a second career as an author and silent film historian in her later years under the name Diana Serra Cary. She was the author of several books including her historical novel The Drowning of the Moon. She was also an advocate for child actors' rights.
Early life
She was born on October 29, 1918, in San Diego, California as Peggy-Jean Montgomery, the second daughter of Marian (née Baxter) and Jack Montgomery.
The public source identifies “Diana Serra Cary” as american child film actress and silent film historian (1918–2020). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Diana, Serra and Cary.
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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 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q458073. VIAF identifies the subject as 64818966. The Library of Congress control number is n93118649. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1918, 2020, 1921 and 1924.
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This entry incorporates text from “Diana Serra Cary” 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.