Peggy Cummins, whose birth name was Augusta Margaret Diane Fuller, was born on 18 December 1925 and died on 29 December 2017. She was an Irish actress born in Wales, best known for her role as a bank-robbing femme fatale in Joseph H. Lewis’s film Gun Crazy (1950). In 2020, The Irish Times ranked her as number 16 on its list of Ireland’s greatest film actors.
Profile Summary
| Birth Name | Augusta Margaret Diane Fuller |
| Date of Birth | 18 December 1925 |
| Place of Birth | Prestatyn, Denbighshire, Wales |
| Date of Death | 29 December 2017 (aged 92) |
| Place of Death | London, England |
| Spouse | William Herbert Derek Dunnett (m. 1950; died 2000) |
Age
Augusta Margaret Diane Fuller was born on 18 December 1925 in Prestatyn, Denbighshire, Wales.
Biography
Cummins was born as Augusta Margaret Diane Fuller in Prestatyn, Denbighshire, Wales. Her Irish parents were visiting the area when a storm prevented them from returning to their home in Dublin.
She spent most of her early years in Killiney, Dublin, where she went to school, and later moved to London. Her father, Franklin Bland Fuller, was born in Dublin and was the grandson of architect James Franklin Fuller. Her mother, Margaret Cummins, was an actress who appeared as Anna in Smart Woman and as Emily in The Sign of the Ram, both released in 1948.
Early acting career
A story claims that actor Patrick Brock discovered Cummins at a Dublin tram stop and introduced her to the Gate Theatre Company, but she told Barbara Roisman Cooper at age 88, “That is absolutely nonsense.” As a child in Dublin, she attended the Abbey School of Ballet. She was noticed there and chosen for a non-speaking part in The Duchess of Malfi at the Gate Theatre. “I played one of the children, only seen in silhouette because they had been murdered … that was my start in the theatre.” Cummins made her London stage debut as Maryann, the young lead in Let’s Pretend, a children’s revue that opened at the St James’s Theatre on her 13th birthday.
Because of this experience, she was cast in the British film Dr. O’Dowd (1940), directed by Herbert Mason. Under an agreement with the London County Council, Cummins could only film for five hours a day and had to be supervised by a governess. She later had supporting roles in Salute John Citizen (1942) and Old Mother Riley Detective (1943).
At age 17, she performed on the London stage in 1943, playing 12-year-old Fuffy in Junior Miss at the Saville Theatre. In 1944, she played the title role in Alice in Wonderland at the Palace Theatre.
Her first major film was English Without Tears (1944), which starred Michael Wilding and Lilli Palmer and was directed by Harold French. In the United States, it was released as Her Man Gilbey. She next appeared in Welcome, Mr. Washington (1944).
Personal life
In 1954, she was named the First Honorary Commander of the 582d Air Resupply Group at RAF Molesworth in England, a unit designated for special operations by the United States Air Force.
She married businessman Derek Dunnett (William Herbert Derek Dunnett) in 1950, and they remained together until his death in 2000. They had two children: a son born in 1954 and a daughter born in 1962.
Cummins ended her film career in 1961, but she continued to appear on television until the mid-1960s. In the 1970s, she became active in a national charity called Stars Organisation for Spastics, where she raised money and led the management committee for a holiday center for children with disabilities in Sussex. The charity, known as SOS, became an independent registered charity in 2001 and changed its name to Stars Foundation for Cerebral Palsy in 2008. Cummins served as a trustee for the charity, which is run entirely by volunteers and raises funds for communication and mobility aids for people with cerebral palsy. Later in life, she lived in West London.
On 25 January 2013, Cummins was honored at the Noir City Film Festival at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco, where a restored print of Gun Crazy was screened.
Cummins died on 29 December 2017, eleven days after her 92nd birthday, at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in London, England, after suffering a stroke.
Death
Cummins died on 29 December 2017 at the age of 92 in London, England.
