Peggy Cass(1924-1999)
- Actress
Mary Margaret Cass was born May 21, 1924, in Boston, Massachusetts.
After three years in the Cambridge Latin School drama club without one
speaking part, she moved to New York, where she worked as a secretary,
telephone operator, advertising solicitor and model. She joined a USO
troupe that took her to Australia for seven months, but she did not
appear in any shows (the U.S. troops had moved on). As understudy, she
took Jan Sterling's part in a national tour
of "Born Yesterday," finally being cast in her own right in the 1949
Broadway musical "Touch and Go." The mid 1950s brought her the defining
role of Agnes Gooch in
Auntie Mame (1958), her stage and
screen performances earning her a Tony and an Oscar nomination,
respectively. From then on, she was best known for her regular
television quiz show appearances:
Keep Talking (1958),
Match Game (1973),
Password (1961), and
To Tell the Truth (1956).
She was very smart and very funny, but her signature was her
unmistakably raspy voice. She died on March 8, 1999, at Manhattan's
Sloane-Kettering Hospital of heart failure.
