Description

Description: Two autograph letters signed and one typed letter signed (four pages total), touch on her admiration for Heggie’s performance, tension with the Theater Guild and Heggie’s confidence in her abilities.

Unable to find “Dear O. P. Heggie” to express her “joy” in person, Peggy Wood writes glowingly of his performance, “It was the most divine piece of work I have ever seen, I never knew I could laugh or feel so deliciously relaxed after an afternoon of violent exercises of the diaphragm. Bless you for it and be it on you if I have broken a blood vessel!”

In the typed letter of Feb 22, 1925, which reveals some of the tensions in the theatrical world, Wood diplomatically asks “Dear Peter Heggie” about his “little argument with the Theater Guild” and its “right to produce ‘Androcles,’” as she “would like to know something of what is up.” She says it has been her “ambition to fulfill [Heggie’s] appreciation of [her] ability to play Lavinia and [she is] not going to give it up too easily.” She hopes that all their (the Guild’s, Heggie’s, and hers) schedules will allow a Spring performance.

Unable to attend her uncle John’s memorial service, Wood asks “Dear Peter”  “if there isn’t something ‘Trelawney’ will want to do to which [she] might contribute?”

All letters are signed “Peggy Wood.”

One ALS is written on an 8” x 5 ½” piece of stationery embossed “PW”, another is on two pages of 6 ½” x 5 ½” paper. The TLS is on a 10 ½” x 7 ½” sheet of stationery embossed “The Shelton – New York”. Item #A01992

Peggy (Mary Margaret) Wood (1892-1978) was a stage, film, and television actress. She had a 50-year career on stage as singer and star in London and New York. Noel Coward chose her to play the lead in his widely successful production Bitter Sweet (1929).  She is, however, best remembered for her performance as the leading character in the TV series Mama (1949-57) and her final role as the mother Abbess in The Sound of Music (1965).

Oliver Peters Heggie (1877-1936), an Australian theater and film actor, began in amateur theater productions in Sydney and London. He gained prominence on Broadway (NYC), playing the lead in Androcles and The Lion, Old Man Minick in Minick, Shylock in The Merchant of Venice, Diggory in She Stoops to Conquer, and others. He moved to Hollywood in 1928 and appeared in 27 films, including: The Count of Monte Cristo, The Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu, etc.

Condition: Mailing fold lines, thinning of paper on TLS, otherwise generally in good condition.