Margaret Kerry
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Margaret Kerry (born Peggy Lynch, circa 1930, Los Angeles) is an American actress, motivational speaker and radio host best known for her 1953 work as the model for Tinker Bell in the Walt Disney Pictures animated feature, Peter Pan.
Kerry answered an audition call during the planning stages of the film. The audition, supervised by Disney animator Marc Davis, required her to pantomime the motions that would eventually be animated as Tinker Bell, such as preening in a mirror at her feet. She won the audition and spent the next six months at the Disney Studios on a mostly empty soundstage pantomiming the role on film. The studios provided props as well, notably a giant keyhole mounted on a stand as well as a pair of giant scissors, later used in the scene in which Tinker Bell became trapped in a jewelry box.
Kerry also provided the basis of the red-haired mermaid in the Neverland lagoon scenes. She will be replaced in Peter Pan II as the same Mermaid. Since Disney released the film at about the time Marilyn Monroe had begun to make an impact, an urban legend immediately sprung up attributing the role to her.
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[edit] Early history
While working under her given name as a dancer and actor in three of the Our Gang comedy shorts, she came to the attention of Eddie Cantor who cast her in the role of his teenaged daughter in the film If You Knew Susie as well as bestowing her stage name on her. She graduated high school with honors while working on the film and later graduated cum laude from Los Angeles City College.
[edit] Television work
While still a teen, Margaret Kerry gained a role as "Sharon" in one of the very first network sitcoms, The Ruggles on ABC-TV. The show's farewell episode after its three-year run featured Sharon's wedding and honeymoon, a major media event. She also appeared on The Andy Griffith Show in two episodes.
A voiceover talent with a repertoire of twenty-one dialects and forty-eight character voices, Kerry provided the voices (and lips) for characters on 260 episodes of the groundbreaking children's television show, Clutch Cargo, including major characters "Paddlefoot" and "Spinner". She also provided numerous voices and live-action lead-ins for The New 3 Stooges and Space Angel animated series for Cambria Productions.
[edit] Today
Since 1992, Margaret Kerry has worked as producer, writer and host of "What's Up Weekly" on KKLA-FM Los Angeles, a Christian radio station. As the station's community services director, she heads an outreach program that connects to more than 200 non-profit service agencies. She also attends conventions and signs autographs for fans, including the Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention. Often mistaken for actress Peggy Lynch because of her screen name, Kerry has been mis-credited as starring on the old-time radio program, "The Couple Next Door."
