February 8, 1960: Duluthian Peggy Knudsen gets star on Hollywood Walk of Fame

On this day in 1960, Duluth native Peggy Knudsen received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Knudsen was born April 27, 1923, and grew up on the Hillside. As a child she developed a  talent for playing the violin and played on local radio shows before going on to act in plays by Duluth’s Little Theatre. She moved to Chicago in 1940 and New York the following year.. According to biographer David Ouse, after a failed marriage to a much-older man, Knudsen traveled to Hollywood to do several screen tests, and Warner Brothers signed her in February of 1945. Her first movie was in a small role in A Stolen Life (1946), starring Glenn Ford and Bette Davis, in which Davis played twin sisters. Knudsen made four more movies that year, including The Big Sleep with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall portraying Mona Mars, wife of gangster Eddie Mars. It’s a small but important role, including a memorable scene with both Bogart and Bacall. In 1946 she also appeared in Shadow of a Woman, Never Say Goodbye with Errol Flynn and Eleanor Parker, and Humoresque with Joan Crawford and John Garfield.  For the next ten years, Knudsen appeared in nearly a film a year, including Copper Canyon (1950), with Ray Milland and Hedy Lamarr, and Good Morning, Miss Dove (1955), in which she appeared as Nurse Green with her longtime friend Jennifer Jones. There is much more to the life of Peggy Knudsen, and you can read about it here.

Peggy Knudsen during her Hollywood years in the 1940s. The Duluth native starred along Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in The Big Sleep.(Image: Public Domain)