The absolutely beautiful and obscure Peggy Corday. The image above is from the June 23, 1944, issue of Yank Magazine. (I’ll say!) Peggy is in costume for her role as Venus in the Broadway play Helen Goes to Troy which ran from April 24 to July 15, 1944. (97 performances)
The above detail of 20 year old Peggy as Venus comes from the May 29, 1944, issue of Life magazine which featured an article about Helen Goes to Troy. Below are two photos that were taken by Skippy Adelman for the New York City Daily News on April 6, 1944. (Whether or not they were actually used in the publication is another question!)
A few years later, Peggy would co-host (and possibly model on?) Joe Costa’s Photographic Horizons television show, a sort of on-air camera club program that aired Wednesdays at 8:30pm on the DuMont network. (Photographic Horizonscould have aired as early as August 25, 1948, though most sources say it ran from January 12 to March 7 of 1949.)
On July 15, 1946, Peggy appeared as the “Woman Scorned” in the Boston Summer Theater production of Burlesque. (Also starring Bert Lahr, I might add!)
She was named Miss Television in March of 1949 by Radio and Television Best magazine.
It was also in March of 1949 that the famed Robert Ripley introduced Corday as his assistant on the original (albeit short-lived) television series Believe It or Not. According to Neal Thompson’s A Curious Man, “Her first moment as Ripley’s on-air assistant was a shrill scream of pretend shock as she opened a closet door to find Ripley’s lifelike Masakichi statue staring back at her. Corday was bright-eyed and quick on her feet.”
(The above detail is from the January, 1946, cover of Picture-Wise.)
After 1949, Peggy seems to disappear from television and magazines.
If you have any more information about Ms. Corday, I would love to hear from you!
