PEGGY RYAN
ACTING
A vastly talented musical performer, Peggy Ryan found stardom dancing alongside partner Donald O'Connor as Universal's answer to Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney.
Paired up in many a low-budget WWII-era musical, she was best known for her dancing feet, but she was no slouch in the singing department and her buoyant personality added plenty of zest to the escapist fare she appeared in.
Christened Margaret O'Rene Ryan, Peggy was, as they say, born in a trunk in 1924 to a pair of vaudeville dancers ("The Merry Dancing Ryans") and, by age two, the pint-sized scene-stealer was already selling her heart out on stage alongside her parents.
Here Come the Co-eds 1945
Follow the Boys 1944
That's the Spirit 1945
All Ashore 1953
Get Hep to Love 1942
Miss Annie Rooney 1942
Patrick the Great 1945
Babes on Swing Street 1944
Mister Big 1943
The Merry Monahans 1944
Top Man 1943
The Flying Irishman 1939
Chip Off the Old Block 1944
The Grapes of Wrath 1940
This Is the Life 1944
What's Cookin'? 1942
Billy Rose's Casa Mañana Revue 1938
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 1942
Private Buckaroo 1942
Bowery to Broadway 1944
There's a Girl in My Heart 1949
Top of the Town 1937
Men in Her Diary 1945
Sailor's Lady 1940
On Stage Everybody 1945
Shamrock Hill 1949
She Married a Cop 1939
Pleasure Palace 1980
Hawaii Five-O 1968