Margaret Kerry

• Name — Margaret Kerry • Birth Name — Margaret McCarty • Born — 11 May 1929 • Birthplace — Springfield, Illinois, U.S. • Died — 11 June 2026 • Place of death — Wilmington, North Carolina, U.S. • Occupation — * Actress • voice artist • radio producer, director, and host • media personality • Years Active — 1933–1953, 1993, 2020–2026 • Children — 3 • Website — Margaret Kerry official website

• Illustration — Kerry in 2013 • Illustration — Kerry in 2019 • Illustration — Kerry at Galaxycon in Richmond, Virginia in 2022 Born as Margaret McCarty on May 11, 1929, in Springfield, Illinois, she was adopted at three years old and moved to Los Angeles. Her adoptive parents later had her name legally changed to Peggy Lynch Her first role was as a fairy in the 1935 film A Midsummer Night's Dream directed by Max Reinhardt. She worked under her real name as a dancer and actor in three of the Our Gang comedy shorts. Kerry served as a camera double for Elizabeth Taylor in the film National Velvet at MGM. She attracted the attention of Eddie Cantor, who cast her in the role of his teenage daughter in the film If You Knew Susie. Cantor thought Lynch needed a more theatrical-sounding name to be more noticeable as an actor, so she officially became Margaret Kerry. She graduated from high school with honors while working on the film and would later graduate cum laude from Los Angeles City College.

Kerry as a teenager played the role of Sharon in the first network sitcom, The Ruggles, on ABC-TV. The show's farewell episode at the end of its three-year run featured Sharon's wedding and honeymoon. Kerry also appeared in two episodes of The Andy Griffith Show, and in 1950 as Jane Carter in The Squire episode of The Lone Ranger. A voiceover performer with twenty-one dialects and forty-eight character voices, Kerry provided voices on 52 episodes of the groundbreaking children's television show, Clutch Cargo, including characters Paddlefoot and Spinner. She provided numerous voices and live-action lead-ins for The New Three Stooges and Space Angel animated series for Cambria Productions.

Kerry answered an audition call during the planning stages of the animated feature film Peter Pan. The audition, supervised by animator Marc Davis, required her to pantomime the motions that would be used as live-action reference for the animation of Tinker Bell. As Tinker Bell was to be non verbal, her movements would be integral, and Davis sought a dancer that could help embody the character. Kerry won the part and spent six months at the Disney Studios on a mostly empty sound stage pantomiming the part. The studios provided props, notably a giant keyhole mounted on a stand as well as a pair of giant scissors, used in the scene where Tinker Bell became trapped in a jewelry box. Kerry also provided the voice and reference movements of the red-haired mermaid in the Neverland lagoon scene.

Kerry was a producer, writer, and host of What's Up Weekly - Ministry Loves Company on KKLA-FM, Los Angeles, a Christian radio station, from 1992 to 2004. Also serving as the station's community services director, she headed an outreach program that connected to more than 200 non-profit service agencies. Kerry was a certified seminar leader by the American Seminar Leaders Association and co-author and facilitator of the FUNdamentals of Speaking Seminars. She continued to meet fans and attended many conventions, events, and seminars throughout the United States. As a supporter and contributor within the animation community, Kerry served as a board member of ASIFA-Hollywood for a number of years.

Kerry was married three times. She was married to Dick Brown from 1951 to 1984. They have three children:Ellen Seibel: Married to Joel Seibel, an Emmy Award-winning animation producer. Christina "Chris" McCarty and Eric Norquist. She married John Wilcox from 1987 to his death in 1999. In 2019, she reconnected after 70 years with her former boyfriend, 94-year-old WWII veteran Robert Boeke. Boeke had passed a store called Tinker Bell Toys while visiting Europe for D-day's 75th anniversary, and told his friend he had always loved Tinker Bell; his friend found Kerry's email address. They were married on Valentine's Day 2020 in a ceremony at the Little Brown Church in the Valley in Studio City, California. Kerry suffered from prosopagnosia and wrote and spoke publicly about coping with the cognitive disorder. Kerry died from lung cancer in Wilmington, North Carolina, on June 11, 2026, at the age of 97. Her husband Robert Boeke died less than three weeks earlier, on May 24, at the age of 100.

• Year — Title — Role — Notes • 1935 — A Midsummer Night's Dream — Fairy — as Peggy Lynch • Teacher's Beau — Student — Short film • 1936 — The Pinch Singer — Call-in voter — Short film • 1938 — The Adventures of Tom Sawyer — Schoolgirl — Uncredited • Aladdin's Lantern — Tap Dancer — Uncredited • 1948 — If You Knew Susie — Marjorie Parker • Canon City — Maxine Smith • 1949 — The Sickle or the Cross — Betty Deems • 1953 — Peter Pan — Mermaid — voice, uncredited • 1993 — Public Access — Marge • 2020 — Before There Were Rings — Nana — Short film