The woman responsible for shaping Tinker Bell as we know her has died. Margaret Kerry, the actress and dancer best known for being the live-action model for Peter Pan‘s Tinker Bell, was 97.
According to a statement about her Facebook page Kerry died on June 11 at his home in Wilmington, NC after losing his battle with lung cancer.
“Margaret was deeply grateful for the extraordinary life she enjoyed and felt tremendously blessed by her loved ones and the countless friends and fans she met along the way,” the statement said. “And remember, on any given night, look up in the night sky and look for the ‘second star on the right’. When you look closer, you might just notice that star shines a little brighter in Margaret’s honor.”
Tinker Bell’s origins lie in Peter Pan or the boy who wouldn’t grow upa 1904 play by British writer JM Barrie, which was later expanded into a 1911 novel, Peter and Wendy. Barrie invented “fairy dust” to explain how Tinker Bell could enable children to fly, but in the original story she wasn’t quite the Tinker Bell fans know and love today. In fact, she was “quite an ordinary fairy” who fixed pots and pans. Peter eventually forgets her, and in stage performances she was simply a spotlight.
But with Kerry’s help, Tinker Bell came to life in Disney’s original animated film adaptation Peter Pan (1953). To reinvent the non-speaking character for film, illustrator Marc Davis spent months with Kerry, having her pantomime everything he wanted Tinker Bell to do.
“Marc Davis is a man’s man – how does he know how a three and a half inch sprite is going to move, get angry or stamp her foot?” Kerry said Los Angeles Times in 2002. “And how does he know what kind of feelings are behind it?”
In a 2003 interview with historian Jim KorkisKerry told her audition that she pantomimed making breakfast with “as many different movements as I could do in the context of a little story.”
She got the job and in the process contributed herself to what turned out to be a scene in Peter Pan. As she pantomimed what she thought it would look like if Tinker Bell landed on a mirror and saw herself, she thought that she might never have seen her reflection – so she began to push one more time until she reached her hips, got upset and stormed off, New York Times reports.
Born Margaret McCarty on May 11, 1929, in Sprinfield, Ill., her mother died during childbirth and his father was unable to care for his five children, Parade reports. She was adopted at the age of 3 by Frederick and Gracy Robb, who lived in Los Angeles. The couple thought she was “as cute as Shirley Temple” and at the age of 4 had her in Central Casting.
She was successful in Hollywood and even appeared in eight of them Our gang short film about the little rascals. Her stage name was originally Peggy Lynch, but changed her name to Margaret Kerry at Eddie Cantor’s suggestion after playing his daughter in the film If you knew Susie.
She married Dick Brown, a television producer and director, in 1951. They divorced in the 1980s. Her 1987 marriage to Jack Wilcox ended with his death in 1999. She is survived by three children from her first marriage, Eric Norquist, Christina McCarty and Ellen Seibel, as well as several grandchildren.
She remarried on Valentine’s Day 2020 in a story that sounds straight out of Hollywood itself. In 2019, D-Day veteran Robert Boeke visited Europe to mark his 75th anniversary. Passing by a shop in Amsterdam called Tinker Bell Toys, he said: “I’ve been in love with her all my life.”
It turned out he was literal; Boeke and Kerry dated years ago in Los Angeles. A friend of his found her email address and sent her a note, although Boeke assumed she had forgotten about him – but Kerry had saved a piece of jewelry he had given her all those years ago, and sparks flew again. She told author and YouTube host Jonathan Rosen”It was love at second sight.”
Boeke lived until just two and a half weeks before Kerry’s death.
