June 29, 2011

Pine Bluff (Jefferson County) native Winona Sammon is better known to the world by her stage name, Peggy Shannon. Born in 1907, Sammon’s performance career began when she joined the famed Ziegfeld Follies in 1923. It was there that she adopted her stage name. She appeared on Broadway for approximately eight years before starting a motion picture career, which saw her compared to famous star Clara Bow. Her promising future was compromised by alcoholism, which contributed to her untimely death in 1941.