Margaret Kerry was born in May 1929 in Springfield, Illinois. Then she moved to California and lived there for almost 90 years. She was adopted at three years old. She jokes saying she caused the Depression [Annotator's Note: the Great Depression was a global economic depression that lasted from 1929 through 1939 in the United States]. She was born and everything went downhill from there. They found two people who were old enough to be her grandparents and they adopted her. She looked like Shirley Temple [Annotator's Note: Shirley Temple Black; American actress, singer, dancer, and diplomat]. They put her to work which was not unusual for people their age. Everything she did was a career. She was making money. She did not have a normal childhood but it was a wonderful childhood. She did not learn about the world because she was in make-believe land. She got good at dancing and got parts in movies and on tv. Then she got a part with the USO [Annotator's Note: United Service Organizations, Inc.]. She had her first part when she was four years old. She was in a movie called "A Midsummer Night's Dream." She had no idea what was going on as she walked through the streets of Warner Brothers [Annotator's Note: Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc.]. They had a zig-zag light. She was with a group of other children. When a buzzer went off they were told to be quiet because they were shooting on stage. Her mother was standing on the side telling her to smile. The director came over and told her to step forward. She got her own costume. She was a little fairy in a white dress. Mickey Rooney [Annotator's Note: Mickey Rooney; American actor, producer, radio entertainer, and vaudevillian] played Puck. One day they had a fire on set and Rooney picked her up and took her out of there. The next thing she did was "The Little Rascals" and she was in eight of those. They had wonderful teachers that looked after them. They could only work three hours out of the day in front of the camera and out of those three hours they only worked 20 minutes at a time. The social worker or teacher kept track of the time. The worst part was they had to go to a schoolroom that had adult tables and chairs. Then she went to a girls school so she could get a permit to work. They could only get the permit from a private school. She took acting and voice-over classes. She knows 26 dialects and she has done over 600 cartoons in her life. They went to little theaters. Her parents were older and did not know anyone with children. To keep her happy, they would let her go to a place called The Hitching Post that played Western movies. Every Saturday she had a date with her mother to see the matinee at the Hitching Post. She was always at home or work. She never made it big in the movies. She liked television better. With the movies, they would have to redo takes, but on television, they did not do that. She went to school with Walt Disney [Annotator's Note: Walter Elias Disney; American entrepreneur, animator, writer, voice actor, and film producer] stars. She had the best teachers. They were dedicated ladies. Effie Clark [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify] would leave them and go out on ships. They would go into the water and drop scoops into the bottom and bring up little fish. She would put them into a category and put her name after it. She loved her school. They put on one play and she got to be Scrooge. She loved it. She did 172 shows and they did not take a break. They did three years straight running with no cue cards. If they made a mistake it was there. WXO was another station she worked for. She worked for Channel 5 as well. She wrote a book about how she got involved in television.

Margaret Kerry spent most of her time isolated. When she heard about Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941], she had just gotten home from church. They had their car radio on. She did not understand what was going on. Her father gave a couple of curse words and ran inside to turn on the big radio. They sat down in front of it and stayed there. She knew it was horrific, but she did not know it would go on. She was surprised when FDR [Annotator's Note: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States] said there was going to be a war. She did not understand how they could go to war if they were way over there. Her mother did not want to hear anything about it. Her teachers never mentioned it. She was in a make-believe world. Newspapers changed. Her father would get the LA Times [Annotator's Note: Los Angeles Times; daily newspaper based in El Segundo, California] and he got the Herald-Examiner [Annotator's Note: Los Angeles Herald Examiner; a major newspaper that was published in the afternoon on week days] in the afternoon. He would show her things in the newspapers. He called her "darl" which was short for doll and darling. He would tell her to look at the newspapers. One time, the newspaper said the DC-3 [Annotator's Note: Douglas DC-3 commercial airliner] airplane would carry 42 passengers and they thought that would never happen. The pictures and photographs in the newspapers made the difference. Her hero was Douglas MacArthur [Annotator's Note: General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander, Southwest Pacific Area]. Years later, she found out Eisenhower [Annotator's Note: General of the Army Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower, Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Force; 34th President of the United States] was on his staff in the Philippines. He had a little boy and a lovely wife. She would cut out his pictures. She would put them up on her wall. She was interested in the Japanese theatre. They were on the West Coast [Annotator's Note: West Coast of the United States] and had to do blackouts. They never had to cover their headlights because they drove during the day. Her father was a broker for a company in Kalamazoo, Michigan called Durametallic Corporation. His business picked up immediately. They had the packing for the chemical industry and gas industry. He had his office in the house. He would have his deliveries made to the house. He would get what they wanted and put the stuff in his car. She would ride with him. They were steam and petroleum plants. She was treated like a little queen when she got there. The men at one of the plants set up a dial she could play with. Her life during the war was light-hearted. She heard about the Japanese submarines and she thought we [Annotator's Note: the United States] could take care of it. Television became stronger. She worked on several stations that would give her a script. At KHJ, she had to tell the cameraman how to work the camera. Klaus Landsberg [Annotator's Note: German expatriate Klaus Landsberg; pioneering electrical engineer] came over on one of the last ships to come from Germany when he was 18 years old. He went to the 1936 World's Fair. He had a special deal with electronics and he did not want the Germans to have it. Landsberg got a job with Channel 5. He was the first man to know they could get coaxial cords over the mountains where they dropped the first bomb [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, 6 and 9 August 1945]. He was the first person to get cameras on sight for a little girl that fell down a well. They stayed on for eight or 10 hours. He showed how to cover it and how to do it. Other tv stations followed him. Then he covered the Hollywood Canteen [Annotator’s Note: Hollywood, California].

Margaret Kerry's mother heard there were producers and stars that went to the Hollywood Canteen [Annotator's Note: Hollywood, California]. Her mother wanted her to be something. Her mother was a concert violinist when she was younger in San Francisco [Annotator's Note: San Francisco, California]. She was a part of the Lynch family. They were quite political. Women did not go on the stage. Her mother's sister did not pay attention to that and she was the first woman to play in the orchestra for silent movies. Her mother idolized her sister. Her mother got a tip about the place. She called over and they said Kerry was underage. They said if she came in the daytime during lunch she could do it because they needed entertainers. She put on her costume and her father took her over there. She had to perform on a dance floor. Tap dancing on a slick dance floor was hard. She was famous for all the spins she did. She danced in about four feet by four feet. Her mother was upset that she did not show off. Klaus Landsberg [Annotator's Note: German expatriate Klaus Landsberg; pioneering electrical engineer] came over and asked to speak with her mother. He told her he ran the tv station W6X0 and they wanted her to come over and dance on the camera. It was on the Paramount lot. They made an appointment to be there. A couple of days later they went over to where they had jammed the camera in. It was hard to move. The only place they could talk was in the booth. Landsberg said he was impressed with her dancing because she could dance in a small area. They could not move their cameras and if she could dance in a small area they could have her on the show. If they moved the camera they would be in the mud. The makeup room was upstairs. They were wonderful people. She went on and did the dancing. They liked her. Channel XYZ, would have her do shows. She got a show on Channel 13. They would go out do talent shows at high schools. This is when she was called to do the Charlie Ruggles [Annotator’s Note: Charles Sherman Ruggles; American comic character actor] show which was a big deal because that was network television. It was because of ABC that Tinkerbell [Annotator's Note: the sassy fairy in Disney's 1953 animated feature film, Peter Pan] became famous again. She would do it again tomorrow. When they did the Charlie Ruggles Show they did not have cue cards. They hoped everyone would remember their lines. When she was on The Andy Griffith Show a few years later they treated her like family. In movies, they do not treat you like family. They did what they were supposed to and they had a click. She did about 12 or 14 USO [Annotator's Note: United Service Organizations, Inc.] shows. She was never featured. It was different. She never met anyone. She went and did her show and then left.

Margaret Kerry was not allowed to leave the state [Annotator's Note: California] because she was underage. They got on a bus and went to different places up and down the coast [Annotator’s Note: The West Coast of the United States]. She was not allowed to talk to those who were over 18 years old. She sat at the front of the bus with the chaperone. She was not to talk to the bus driver or military people. She did about 18 or 20 of those shows. She went to a mansion several times. It is the sister mansion to a mansion in Canada where the President met with Churchill [Annotator's Note: Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill; Prime Minister, United Kingdom, 1940 to 1945]. Boys would come and she was not supposed to dance with them but she would. They thought she was a kid. Her chaperone would look the other way. She mostly kept her away from the other girls on the bus. When they danced they did not talk because it was upbeat. She would teach them some steps. They did not play any waltzes. None of them were good at the waltz. She did not write to anyone overseas. She took her first flight with the USO [Annotator's Note: United Service Organizations, Inc.]. She got a call and they wanted to know if she was free to get on a plane and fly up to Great Falls, Montana to do a USO show. She wanted to fly on an airplane. She kept it away from her parents because they would have stopped it. They got on a DC-3 [Annotator's Note: Douglas DC-3 commercial airliner] transport that had stretchers attached to one wall. On the other side were seats where they could sit. She knew they would be flying at 10,000 feet and she was worried about oxygen and if they would have any. She pulled out a stretcher and climbed on it and stayed there talking to everybody. They had a band with them, three men, and one of them was a 300 pounder. He should not have been on an airplane without oxygen. He brought his bass fiddle. She was excited once they took off. Everyone talked to her. The great big guy came back to talk to her, and he turned green and passed out. Someone realized he needed oxygen. They brought him around and then kept him flat the rest of the ride. They left Burbank [Annotator's Note: Burbank, California] at 80 degrees and got to Great Falls and it was freezing. They got to the officers' quarters and did their number. She thought they were terrible. The officers were not paying attention; they were leaning over the bar and drinking. The next day they went to the non-commissioned officers' club and they were a sensation. They were the best audience and did not want them to leave. Then they headed home. The great big guy was put on a train. They flew back. They talked about when they were good. She told them they could call her anytime. She felt like she was part of the effort. Seeing Rosie the Riveter [Annotator's Note: nickname used to identify any female working in a physical role in the defense industry during World War 2] and all the other women out there made her feel like she was not doing anything, but the USO shows made her feel like she was. When they went to San Diego [Annotator's Note: San Diego, California] at Camp Pendleton [Annotator's Note: Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton in San Diego County, California] they knew she wanted to go to church and they would take her to church on Sunday. One time there was a soldier getting married at the little church and she went over and carried the flowers for them.

Margaret Kerry's parents got chickens. They lived in Windsor, a little town outside of Los Angeles [Annotator's Note: Los Angeles, California]. They lived in a gated community. Her father got chickens to help with the war effort. Her mother had a housekeeper. Her father did the shopping. They shopped on Melrose Avenue across from Paramount Studios. Her mother got sheets on the black market. They were twin sheets and they did not have twin beds. They never went to the celebrations. They listened to them over the radio and television. Her father had never gone to New Year. They never gave her a birthday party. They would give her presents, and if they went out they went to their place to eat. They went to a place where her parents knew all the people. She had people come over on her 15th and 16th birthday and sing to her and bring her a cake. Her father was a conservative. He did not like FDR [Annotator's Note: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States] at all. When Harry S. Truman [Annotator's Note: Harry S. Truman, 33rd President of the United States] came along he knew nothing. He had not been told about the atomic bomb [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, 6 and 9 August 1945] and her father wanted to give him a shot. He ended up liking Truman a lot. She was born Margaret Loraine McCarty then she was adopted and they changed her name. Her name became Peggy Loraine Robb. Peggy is a nickname for Margaret. When she started working, her mother was worried about the Robb name. For show business, she became Peggy Lynch. Then she became Margaret Kerry. It was after Norman Kerry who did silent films. Then she married the associate director Richard Brown, then she was Margaret Brown. After he passed she married John Willcox and became Margaret Willcox. Eddie Canter [Annotator's Note: born Isidore Itzkowitz; American "illustrated song" performer, comedian, dancer, singer, vaudevillian, actor, and songwriter] was the highest paid entertainer in the land. He was a song and dance man. He was very famous. He made 10,000 dollars a week. She was in his movie "If You Knew Susie" and it was his signature song. She worked six weeks on the movie. Then she graduated high school. He sat down with the President and came up with the charity The March of Dimes [Annotator's Note: March of Dimes is a United States nonprofit organization that works to improve the health of mothers and babies] and try to get all the children to send in a dime.

Margaret Kerry remembers the time when no one knew if television would take over the movies. The movie stars could be their own person, but before that the studios made the stars. Big things happened where only television could cover it. Then television could cover football. Her first husband was one of the first to help film a football game for ABC [Annotator's Note: American Broadcasting Company; American multinational commercial broadcast television network]. They had a hard time moving the cameras. Every time they switched the cameras it looked like the guy was running in a different direction. She was doing the Charlie Ruggles Show [Annotator’s Note: Charles Sherman Ruggles; American comic character actor] on ABC at the time. She got a call after doing another show for ABC. It was a short run because it was too expensive. The dance director liked her dancing. He was hired to do the choreography for a movie on FOX. He needed an assistant dance instructor and he took Roland Dupre and her. She did not know what she was doing. She got a call from her agent to interview for a Disney film. She was going to be a sprite that did not talk. She interviewed for Marc Davis, the designer for Tinkerbell [Annotator's Note: the sassy fairy in Disney's 1953 animated feature film, Peter Pan]. He was a nice man. After she did the scene for him he asked her to come work for him. She did that job for nine months. She is the original live-action reference model for Tinkerbell. Everyone wanted to work for Disney. He started his business in 1923 in Kansas City [Annotator's Note: Kansas City, Missouri]. Disney was beautiful. It was kept up and the people were laughing. They could not experience that at other studios. They took 31 of them around the studio. There were many rewards for working there. The movie that did badly was "Robin Hood" because Walt Disney [Annotator's Note: Walter Elias Disney; American entrepreneur, animator, writer, voice actor, and film producer] had died. She met him and chatted with him. She stood there dumbstruck. She found him handsome and charming. People loved him. He would get frustrated when people did not get his ideas. She would get to work at 9:30 in the morning and would go to hair and makeup. She wore a one-piece bathing suit as a costume. She would meet with Marc Davis and a couple of other people. They would walk to the stage. Then he would show her through the drawing what she was supposed to do. She asked what kind of personality he wanted her to have. They wanted Tinkerbell to be her. She was a dancer and that is what Tinkerbell ended up being.

Margaret Kerry felt special she had been chosen to play Tinkerbell [Annotator's Note: the sassy fairy in Disney's 1953 animated feature film, Peter Pan]. She had to think about what she was going to make her do next. She would decide what facial expressions she wanted to do. It worked and she put her mind to it. She would wear a coverup jacket over her bathing suit. They did two takes just for protection. They did not trace her. He added things. Twenty years later she was having lunch with Marc Davis. She asked why Tinkerbell was showing her underpants. She was the only character that showed her underpants. Disney made a six-minute tape for her. Then they put in things about her. She used that as she worked. She played Tinkerbell as she had never seen a tape before. Looking in the mirror is the one she did for them. Then she had to look upset one time. Davis drew her face how he wanted it to look. He was a genius. She never worked for them again on a picture. They sent her around the world for Tinkerbell. She was supposed to go to Knoxville [Annotator's Note: Knoxville, Tennessee]. Then she went to Grand Rapids, Michigan. She started dating Robert. When she was 18 years old her mother told her she was allowed to date. She was invited to USC [Annotator's Note: University of Southern California in Los Angeles, California] to his graduation dinner. She knew about a beach and he did not know about it. He had to get a job. She was working at the Charlie Ruggles Show [Annotator's Note: Charles Sherman Ruggles; American comic character actor] for FOX. She did not know anything about dating. She was brought up very strict. He went his way into Mobil Oil. Then he advanced and they moved him up north. She was working in Hollywood [Annotator's Note: Hollywood, Los Angeles, California]. They did not see each other again until Mayberry [Annotator's Note: The Andy Griffith Show]. After her 90th birthday, she received an email from some friends of Robert Bookie [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify]. She did want to meet him again. She got a phone call from France. They were on a tour for a celebration of the 75th Anniversary of D-Day [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944]. They had to get to Amsterdam first. Across the road was a store that had Tinkerbell toys. He told his friends he had dated Tinkerbell. His friend sent the email. They took a picture of the store. She wanted to meet at Mount Airy [Annotator's Note: Mount Airy, North Carolina] where they do Mayberry days for Andy Griffith's birthday. He drove eight hours to meet her for the Mayberry days. They saw each other and it was like love at first sight. He helped her get pictures out so she could sign them. He had never seen the television shows. Then they made a date for breakfast. He told her he was going to buy her a new house. He said it had to be near a Costco because that is where he shops. The people at Mayberry were playing Cupid [Annotator’s Note: creature of mythology that helps people fall in love]. They made the front page of the newspaper.

Margaret Kerry went to a winery with the Mayor. They [Annotator's Note: Kerry and her former boyfriend Robert when they reconnected in Mount Airy, North Carolina after not having seen one another in 70 years] made the front page of the newspaper. Robert searched where they wanted to go. His daughter knew a man who went scuba diving all over the world. She told him to get in touch with him. He bought the house. She never saw it until he bought it. She promised she would be back in town for a Disney event. She found a little brown church to get married in on Saint Valentine's Day [Annotator's Note: every year on 14 February]. The church was beautiful. The next day they were married. They went to a restaurant where they sang opera to them. Some people met Robert and they loved him. They went to Walt Disney's [Annotator's Note: Walter Elias Disney; American entrepreneur, animator, writer, voice actor, and film producer] barn. It was moved to Griffith Park [Annotator's Note: in Los Angeles, California]. It was landscaped all around. His hand-crank phone was there. His daughter wanted to make sure it was not destroyed. Then they flew up to Sarasota [Annotator's Note: Sarasota, Florida]. He is a great cook. She does not cook. He was gentle and kind. He was in the service now and then. He opened a wine and beer place while he was on an island in the Philippines. Neither one of them knew about dating. Besides seeing the war movies, they never felt anything against the Japanese in America. A couple of things happened they could not do anything about. They thought their soldiers were the best. They were not impacted. Street lights were painted if they shined out toward the sea [Annotator's Note: this was done to prevent the shoreline from being identified by ships]. Her father did not serve. Being Tinkerbell [Annotator's Note: the sassy fairy in Disney's 1953 animated feature film, Peter Pan] changed her life. She had one lady tell her that Tinkerbell saved her life. The lady thought about how Tinkerbell thinks happy thoughts to bring her out of depression. Two other people told her that Tinkerbell helped them. She signs all the pictures. The one that says think happy thoughts goes the fastest. She is learning stories about her husband that they never heard about each other.