Peggy Mc Cay - Biography

Biography

The Manhattan-born McCay was the only child of Michael McCay, a construction company owner who specialized in building schools, and his wife, Cathryn (or Catherine) McCay. She attended St. Walburga's Convent School and Barnard College, graduating from the latter in June 1949. After graduation, she joined impresaria Margo Jones's Texas-based theatre company and graduated to repertory, where she essayed numerous roles. She also studied with Lee Strasberg in New York, later helping to set up Strasberg's West Coast studio. One of her first off-Broadway roles was in a production of Chekhov's Uncle Vanya, opposite Franchot Tone; they reprised their roles in the 1957 film version of the play.

McCay accepted her first major role as the heroine Vanessa Dale on the soap opera Love of Life, which premiered in 1951. After four years, she left in 1955 to pursue other options. She was soon cast in an episode of the CBS anthology series, Appointment with Adventure. She appeared in four feature films in the late 1950s before landing a lead role in 1962 in the television series Room for One More as Anna Perrott Rose, who had written a memoir about her family life as a foster mother. Her costars were Andrew Duggan and Flip Mark.

In 1962, McCay starred in the feature film, Lad, A Dog.

In the episode "Broken Honor" (April 9, 1963) of NBC's Laramie western series, McCay and Rod Cameron portray Martha and Roy Halloran, a farm couple who stumbles upon $30,000 in money found inside a strong box on their property. The loot had been seized by bandits in a stagecoach heist and hidden away for later retrieval. Roy, who is bound to a wheelchair, insists on keeping the money until series character Jess Harper, played by Robert Fuller, arrives at their farm amid grave danger to all of their lives from the bandits, one of whom is played by Don "Red" Barry.

McCay also guest-starred in The Greatest Show on Earth, and Jason Evers's Channing, both on ABC (1963–1964). In 1963, she appeared on CBS's Perry Mason in "The Case of the Skeleton's Closet".

She returned to daytime television in 1964 as a leads on ABC's The Young Marrieds. When the show went off the air in 1966, she was written into the storyline on ABC's General Hospital (as Iris Fairchild) until 1970. In the 1970s, McCay appeared in Eleanor and Franklin: The White House Years, How the West Was Won and The Lazarus Syndrome. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, she had a recurring role as Marion Hume in the CBS drama Lou Grant. She may be best known as matriarch Caroline Brady on Days of our Lives. First appearing on the program in February 1983, she signed a long-term contract with the serial in 1985 and has appeared on a regular basis ever since.