The Expressions of Peggy Hyland (1919) 🇬🇧

Our special correspondent dines with Miss Peggy Hyland at her home.

Whirr! goes the telephone, and it is Miss Peggy Hyland giving me an invitation to dinner. She thoughtfully offers to send her motorcar for me, and in about twenty minutes I am flying through avenues of palm and other tropical trees in her big limousine and shortly arrive at a charming bungalow in Hollywood, California, with terraced green lawns running up to the house that is almost hidden by masses of roses and a deep purple creeper (Bougainvillea) covers the whole of one of its sides.

Miss Hyland meets me at the door and courteously welcomes me into a perfect dream of a home saying, “I am glad you are here early, so that we can have a little talk before my other guests arrive.”

Miss Hyland told me that she was born at Harbome in Worcestershire, England, and educated there and in Belgium, and her stage career in England was in musical comedy with the late George Edwardes, and after that she played in The Little Café and The Yellow Jacket with Cyril Maude. She was given a small part in Mr. Maude’s company at first, but the leading lady going to South Africa, Miss Hyland was chosen to take her place, and so commenced a successful stage career.

Played on the Screen in England

After playing on the screen in numerous productions in England, Miss Hyland came to America about three years ago, and has taken star parts in many important productions here, including The Chattel, The Other Woman, A Debt of Honour, Other Men’s Daughters, Marriages Are Made, The Girl with No Regrets, Bonnie Annie Laurie, and so on. She has just finished a star part in The Merry Go-Round.

I asked Miss Hyland if she agreed with the phrase that the moving picture industry is “in its infancy,” and she said that she most emphatically disagreed, as in her opinion the production of films is a very grown-up industry indeed. Of course, there is no limit to the possibilities of the camera, and there are such enormous possibilities in photography it is difficult for any one to say what might eventually be done. Miss Hyland said that she was anxious to see stereoscopic pictures perfected, as that would greatly improve the future making of films, and she did not think that the present-day photography and photographers are getting the recognition that is so well deserved.

She Designs Her Dresses

“What about dresses?” I asked. And the reply was that, although to a woman it was a pleasurable subject, it was a very troublesome and expensive item. Miss Hyland said she would like to design all her own dresses for pictures, and also for other people, and insisted on showing me a dress designed by herself for her part of the detective in Right After Brown. It was made of a pale yellow tulle over a pink satin, and trimmed with iridescent sequins, and Miss Hyland assured me that nothing could possibly photograph better, and showing me a photograph of it, it certainly looked all she had said. She added, “I am always so glad if my efforts in dress designing and acting please the public.”

“Do you think it a duty to please the public?” I asked.

“Indeed I do, and it is a very great delight to me to know that my efforts are appreciated, and yon may assure readers of The Picture Show how much I appreciate the letters I receive from them. To me they are as the applause of an audience at a speaking play, and I have each letter answered, and consider them well worth the trouble.”

A Walk Round the Garden

Miss Hyland asked if I would care to see her garden and chicken ranch, and conducted me through the house into a garden that it is impossible for me to describe. There were orange, lemon, peach, and fig trees, all bearing fruit, and great mosses of flowers of all colours, with a tennis court adjoining. I was then introduced to Judy, her Airedale terrier, three cats, and many chickens — and peeping into the garage, I was surprised to see a modest car standing beside her stately limousine, and remarking on it, Miss Hyland said she had just bought it, for her Japanese servants, husband and wife, who kept house for her, and she thought they deserved it as recompense for the great attachment they displayed towards her. I felt that hers indeed was an illustration of the kind-heartedness and generosity of Peggy.

Miss Hyland’s guests then arrived, and I was introduced to two eminent movie stars and a naval commander, and we proceeded into a small, welt ordered dining-room, panelled with dark oak, and, Miss Hyland presiding at a round table, we were given by her silent-footed Japanese manservant a very nice dinner, with home-grown peaches for dessert.

Dinner over, I reluctantly said good-bye with the coffee, and was driven back to Los Angeles by my friend the naval commander, who agreed with me that we were leaving a charming home and a perfect hostess.

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Peggy Hyland, Fox Star.

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Photo captions:

• I don’t quite understand.
• I am charmed.
• Tear-dimmed eyes.
• All smiles again.
• The pain of doubt.

Collection: Picture Show Magazine, December 1919

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Collection: Picture Show Magazine, May 1920