Diana Serra Cary (born October 29, 1918), known as Baby Peggy, was one of the three major American child stars of the Hollywood silent movie era along with Jackie Coogan and Baby Marie. Between 1921 and 1923 she made over 150 shorts for Century Studios. In 1922 she received over 1.2 million fan letters and by 1924, she had been dubbed "The Million Dollar Baby" for her $1.5 million a year salary. Despite her childhood fame and wealth, she found herself poor and working as an extra by the 1930s.
Having an interest in both writing and history since her youth, Cary found a second career as an author and silent film historian in her later years under the name Diana Serra Cary. She is the author of several books and has become an advocate for child actors' rights.

Biography

At the age of seventeen, trying to escape the film industry and her parents' plans for her life, Cary ran away from home and rented an apartment with her sister Louise. She married actor Gordon Ayres, whom she met on the set of Ah, Wilderness!, in 1938. They divorced in 1948.

In 1954, she married artist Robert "Bob" Cary (sometimes listed as Bob Carey). They had one son, Mark. They remained married until Bob Cary's death in 2001.