Born as Peggy Lynch, in Los Angeles, California to John Riley and Mary Eleanor (Henderson) McCarty, she was quickly adopted. Her first role, at age 4, was as a fairy in the 1935 film A Midsummer Night\'s Dream directed by Max Reinhardt. She worked under her real name as a dancer and actor in three of the Our Gang comedy shorts. She attracted the attention of Eddie Cantor, who cast her in the role of his teenage daughter in the film If You Knew Susie. Cantor thought Lynch needed a more theatrical-sounding name to be more noticeable as an actor, so she officially became Margaret Kerry. She graduated from high school with honors while working on the film and would later graduate cum laude from Los Angeles City College.\n', 'Still a teenager, Kerry played the role of "Sharon" in the first network sitcoms, The Ruggles, on ABC-TV. The show\'s farewell episode at the end of its three-year run featured Sharon\'s wedding and honeymoon. Kerry also appeared in two episodes of The Andy Griffith Show, and a 1950 episode of The Lone Ranger. A voiceover performer with twenty-one dialects and forty-eight character voices, Kerry provided voices on 52 episodes of the groundbreaking children\'s television show, Clutch Cargo, including characters "Paddlefoot" and "Spinner". She provided numerous voices and live-action lead-ins for The New Three Stooges and Space Angel animated series for Cambria Productions.\n', 'Kerry answered an audition call during the planning stages of the animated feature film Peter Pan. The audition, supervised by animator Marc Davis, required her to pantomime the motions that would be used as live-action reference for the animation of Tinker Bell. As Tinker Bell was to be non verbal, her movements would be integral, and Davis sought a dancer that could help embody the character. Kerry won the part and spent six months at the Disney Studios on a mostly empty sound stage pantomiming the part. The studios provided props, notably a giant keyhole mounted on a stand as well as a pair of giant scissors, used in the scene where Tinker Bell became trapped in a jewelry box. Kerry also provided the voice and reference movements of the red-haired mermaid in the Neverland lagoon scene.\n', '

Return to Margaret Kerry Autograph Profile