The Girls part 4 Margherita Frances LaCentra AKA Peg

 Margherita Frances LaCentra AKA Peg

Peg LaCentra was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on April 10, 1910. Her parents, Francisco LaCentra and Olympia Gradone LaCentra, were Italian immigrants. Frank was a barber, and Olympia was a housewife. Peg grew up in a typical Italian household and was baptized Catholic. In the early 1930s, Peg went to New York to find fame, and she did it. Peg was a singer and an actress but was well known for her jazzy, light-hearted singing on the radio. It was radio that led Peg into the life of Agnes Moorehead. Agnes had been married at least three years and probably closer to five when she and Peg became very close. When I say close, I mean living space close.

By June of 1935, Peg had shared an apartment with Agnes and Jack, which was unusual, to say the least. Peg and Agnes went to dinner, took vacations, and gave each other gifts. Peg was featured prominently on a Christmas card drawn probably by Agnes, with photographs of all three on the front with little cherub wings and bodies. I don’t know about you, but I never shared Christmas cards with my roommates. They had theirs, and I had mine. Yet this odd little Christmas card indicates a closeness that seems out of place. Agnes gave Peg the gift of a touchwood bracelet. It was not wildly extravagant but expensive at the time. Peg said she never took it off.

The three shared the apartment until 1938; after that, Peg was their neighbor. Then came 1939, when Agnes went to Hollywood, it appeared they had cut each other off, and no cards or letters have remained from their relationship. From 1939 forward, there wasn’t even a Christmas card between them. By the 1950s, Peg moved to Hollywood to live with the man she had been married to since, you guessed it, 1939. Yet in the many scrapbooks and guest books that contain Agnes’ life,  Peg’s name appears nowhere. I have never seen a photograph of the two of them together. Their relationship follows Aggie’s relationship with Alice MacKenzie; both women have just disappeared from Agnes’ life, and there is no written documentation. 

It’s odd, to say the least, and I make no assumptions, but at that point in Agnes’ life, money was not an issue, so the idea of Peg helping with expenses and living with her doesn’t seem right. Peg was there because she and Agnes were very close. How close? Who knows. Or, as I thought with Alice, maybe Peg was Agnes’ first line of defense with Jack. I don’t think it is accidental that the year Peg gets married is the same year that Jack put Agnes in the hospital.

Whatever the case may be, it’s said that the relationship ended on a sour note, whatever it may have been. Agnes even kept some friends at arm's length, so it is difficult to say why any of this occurred.

Peg died in Los Angeles in 1996 of a heart attack. She lived a stone's throw from Agnes, yet the two had nothing to do with each other. Sad but not unusual for Agnes.