Peggy Dow

Pretty and wholesome blonde American film actress Peggy Dow (1928) could handle comedy and drama with equal finesse. After only nine films, she retired and is now known as a philanthropist, Peggy V. Helmerich.


Italian postcard by Bromofoto, Milano, no. 264.


Italian postcard by Bromofoto, Milano, no. 286. Photo: Universal International.


Big German collector card by Greiling Sammelbilder, Series C, Image F. Photo: Universal-International.

Harvey's lovely nurse Kelly

Peggy Dow was born in 1928 in Columbia, Mississippi. At the age of 4, she moved with her family to Covington, Louisiana. She attended high school and junior college at Gulf Park College in Gulfport, Mississippi (now the Gulf Park campus of the University of Southern Mississippi), then finished college at Northwestern University in Illinois, appearing in college plays and receiving her degree from Northwestern's School of Speech in 1948.

After brief modelling and radio experience, Peggy Dow was spotted by a talent agent. In February 1949, she was cast in a TV show, and soon Universal offered her a seven-year contract.

She made nine films, starting with the female lead opposite Scott Brady in the Film Noir Undertow (William Castle, 1949). Brady plays a former Chicago mobster who is accused of murdering his old boss. Peggy played a vacationing schoolteacher who accidentally gets involved in the murder.

She hit her peak the next year when she co-starred as the lovely nurse Kelly in the classic farce Harvey (Henry Koster, 1950), with James Stewart and Josephine Hull. Stewart plays a man whose best friend is a pooka named Harvey, in the form of a six-foot, three-and-a-half-inch tall invisible white rabbit, and the ensuing debacle when the man's sister tries to have him committed to a sanatorium.

She also co-starred with Best Actor Oscar nominee Arthur Kennedy in the touching war drama Bright Victory (Mark Robson, 1951). The film got raving reviews, but was a disaster financially..


Dutch postcard. Photo: Nova film. Sent by mail in 1951.


British card in the Greetings series. Photo: Universal-International.


British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. W 823. Photo: Universal International.

Marrying an oil driller from Tulsa

After being featured in several crime dramas, Peggy Dow had starring roles in two 1951 family films, Reunion in Reno (Kurt Neumann, 1951) opposite Mark Stevens and You Never Can Tell (Lou Breslow, 1951) with Dick Powell.

Her final film was the drama I Want You (Mark Robson, 1951), taking place in America during the Korean War. After just three years in the film business, Dow retired in 1951 to marry Walter Helmerich III, an oil driller from Tulsa, Oklahoma. He became president of his family's business, Helmerich & Payne.

Gary Brumburgh at IMDb: "This promising 1950s Universal-International contract player had so much going for her - beauty, brains and talent - to go the distance, but she came up far short after deciding to retire for domestic life. (...) Despite such a promising Hollywood forecast, she never looked back and raised five sons in the process."

The couple was married for 60 years, until Walter Helmerich III died in 2012. The couple had five sons.

Peggy Helmrich, now 97, became an active supporter of libraries and other charitable activities. The Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award, an award given annually since 1985 to an author by the Tulsa Library Trust, is named in her honour, as is the drama school at the University of Oklahoma and the auditorium at Northwestern University School of Communication's Annie May Swift Hall.


Spanish postcard. Peggy Dow and Farley Granger in I Want You (Mark Robson, 1951). Sent by mail in 1953.


Spanish postcard. Farley Granger and Peggy Dow in I Want You (1951). Sent by mail in 1954.


West German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag, no. 380. Photo: Universal International.


Dutch postcard by Takken / 't Sticht, no. 6433. Photo: Universal International. Sent by mail in 1952.

Sources: Gary Brumburgh (IMDb), Wikipedia and IMDb.