Halloween Glamour Girl, Peggy Ryan, 1944

This press photo of the leggy Peggy Ryan was released by Universal Pictures in 1944. The caption that accompanies it reads: “With Hallowe’en just around the corner, Peggy Ryan, comedienne of Universal Pictures, gives a glamour girl twist to the traditional witch with the broom. Peggy’s newest picture is ‘The Merry Monahans,’ in which she co-stars with Donald O’Conner and Jack Oakie.”

The Merry Monahans was released on 15 September 1944; this photo is date-stamped 5 November 1944, but for Halloween to be “just around the corner” is must have been circulated in mid-October. I mention this because Peggy Ryan lived almost exactly sixty years after this photo was taken, dying the day before Halloween in 2004, at eighty years of age (performing a “hilarious song-and-dance routine” at her own 80th).

I think the moral of this story is: Laugh and Live Long!