The woman responsible for shaping Tinker Bell as we know her has passed away. Margaret Kerry, the actress and dancer best known as a live-action model Peter Pan‘s Tinker Bell, was 97.
According to a statement about her Facebook page, Kerry died on June 11 at her home in Wilmington, NC after losing her battle with lung cancer.
“Margaret was deeply grateful for the extraordinary life she enjoyed and felt immensely blessed by her loved ones and the countless friends and fans she met along the way,” the statement said. “And remember, every night you should look up at the night sky and look for that ‘second star on the right.’ If you look closer, you might see that star shining a little brighter in Margaret’s honor.”
The origins of Tinker Bell lie in Peter Pan, or the boy who didn’t want to grow upa 1904 play by British writer JM Barrie that was later expanded into a 1911 novel, Peter and Wendy. Barrie invented “fairy dust” to explain how Tinker Bell could enable children to fly, but in the original story she wasn’t quite the Tinker Bell fans know and love today. In fact, she was “a very ordinary fairy” who repaired pots and pans. Peter eventually forgets about her, and during stage performances she was simply a spotlight.
But with Kerry’s help, Tinker Bell came to life in Disney’s original animated film adaptation Peter Pan (1953). To reinvent the character, who does not speak, for film, illustrator Marc Davis spent months with Kerry, making her pantomime everything he wanted Tinker Bell to do.
“Marc Davis is a man’s man – how does he know how a three-inch sprite will move, get angry or stomp her foot?” Kerry said The Los Angeles Times in 2002. “And how does he know what emotion is behind that?”
In a 2003 interview with historian Jim Korkissaid Kerry before her audition, she pantomimed making breakfast with “as much variety of movements as I could do in the context of a little story.”
She got the job and over time even contributed to what turned out to be a scene in Peter Pan. When she pantomimed what she thought it would look like if Tinker Bell landed on a mirror and saw herself, she thought she might never have seen her reflection – so she started preening again until she reached her hips, got upset and stormed off. The New York Times reports.
Margaret McCarty was born on May 11, 1929 in Sprinfield, Illinois, her mother died during childbirth and his father was unable to care for his five children. Parade reports. She was adopted at the age of 3 by Frederick and Gracy Robb, who lived in Los Angeles. The couple thought she was “as cute as Shirley Temple” and at age 4 got her into Central Casting.
She was successful in Hollywood and even appeared in eight of the films Our gang short films about the Little Rascals. Her stage name was originally Peggy Lynch, but changed her name to Margaret Kerry at Eddie Cantor’s suggestion after playing his daughter in the film. If you knew Susie.
She married Dick Brown, a TV producer and director, in 1951. They divorced in the 1980s. Her 1987 marriage to Jack Wilcox ended with his death in 1999. She is survived by three children from her first marriage, Eric Norquist, Christina McCarty and Ellen Seibel, as well as several grandchildren.
She remarried on Valentine’s Day 2020 in a story that sounds straight from Hollywood itself. In 2019, a D-Day veteran, Robert Boeke, visited Europe to celebrate the 75th anniversary. He passed a store in Amsterdam called Tinker Bell Toys and said, “I’ve been in love with her all my life.”
Turns out he was literal; Boeke and Kerry had a relationship in Los Angeles years ago. A friend of his found her email address and sent her a note, although Boeke assumed she had forgotten about it – but Kerry had saved a piece of jewelry he gave her all those years ago, and sparks flew again. She told the author and YouTube host Jonathan Rosen“It was love at second sight.”
Boeke lived until just two and a half weeks before Kerry’s death.
Leave a Reply