‘40s Film Star Peggy Moran Is in the Spotlight Again

Like the Mummy himself, Peggy Moran’s career was long buried.

But then strange things started happening, Professor . . . things that your so-called Science would be at a loss to explain!

Suddenly, they started showing Peggy’s old horror movies on cable. “The Mummy’s Hand.” “The Mummy’s Tomb.” “Horror Island.” Not to mention some of the two dozen westerns and what-nots she made for Universal Studios in the 1940s.

Then, movie buffs flew her to conventions around the United States--as their guest of honor. And fan mail started arriving at her home in Camarillo’s Leisure Village retirement community--effusive, adjective-dripping, autograph-seeking love notes.

“There are very few actresses in the world who achieve the status of legend,” one admirer wrote. “You’re one of the most beautiful ladies ever to grace the silver screen, and with such fantastic movies as ‘The Mummy’s Hand’ and ‘Horror Island’ to your credit, you are one of the brightest gems in the crown of Hollywood . . . “

From time to time, film scholars call. Some are eager to hear behind-the-scenes stories of the Universal dream machine that churned out a B-movie every three weeks. Others want to know about Peggy’s life with Henry Koster, the distinguished director to whom she was married for 46 years.

“It’s absolutely unbelievable,” said Moran, who discusses metaphysics and Jungian psychology as easily as she speaks of crazy nights in Bel-Air. “I’ve become a kind of cult figure.”

That’s no small feat for an actress who retired at age 25, after pouring herself into the kind of movies they don’t make any more: “Flying Cadets” . . . “Oh Johnny, How You Can Love” . . . “Rhythm of the Saddle” . . . “Campus Cinderella” . . . “One Night in the Tropics,” in which Abbott and Costello deliver the first cinematic version of their famous “Who’s on First?” routine.

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So, you enjoy a good scream?

Peggy Moran has been dubbed one of Hollywood’s top “shrieking violets” for her penetrating work in the horror genre.

In “The Mummy’s Hand,” she lets loose a magnificent howl. The Mummy has just lurched into her tent--an invasion foreshadowed by Peggy’s breathless declaration just moments before:

“There’s something going on in that cave that no one of us can understand. . . . There’s something going on there that we’re powerless to stop!”

The scream was spontaneous. The leading lady had memorized her lines the night before but couldn’t bring herself to rehearse shrieking in the thin-walled duplex she shared with her mom.

In many ways, Peggy’s was the perfect Hollywood story.

The main character: A poor kid with a lot of brass and a face that could win a war.

The setup: With the help of a judge her mother meets on jury duty, the eager young actress talks her way into a screen test.

Today, she can’t believe how green she was.

One day, she met a man at a studio bus stop.

“What you need is an agent, kid,” he said.

“What’s an agent?” she asked.

The kid is cast in small parts here and there. She takes elocution lessons to avoid sounding like what she calls “a dumb little starlet.” She goes to lunch with Errol Flynn. She goes to lavish parties but has to borrow her dresses from wardrobe.

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Meanwhile, she meets her soul mate, Henry Koster, a German Jewish director who had recently fled Hitler. Their exchanges glow with possibility.

Henry: So you want to be an actress, eh?

Peggy: I certainly do!

Henry: Well, you’re too pretty. Nobody will believe you can act. You’ll never get anywhere.

She did.

Koster’s marriage ends in divorce. Not long afterward, he asks Peggy to marry him.

Today, she tells the story in a living room hung with the paintings and photos of a lifetime: The couple’s three sons, her husband’s portraits of David Niven and Charles Laughton, a photo of Ron and Nancy Reagan, yellowing movie posters.

“He asked me to give up my career,” she said, “but he promised he’d put me in every movie he made from then on.”

So, as Peggy Moran tells it, she went on to enjoy a marvelous life as Peggy Koster. She and Henry traveled the world. They found lifelong friends in the movies. They built their family and lived happily together until Henry died in 1988.

As for Peggy’s roles in his films, you can see her in each one from then on: “The Bishop’s Wife,” “Harvey,” “A Nun’s Story” and many more.

“He had a statue of me made and he used it in every film,” Peggy says. “Everyone on the set would get a big kick out of it when the order would go out: ‘Bring in Mrs. Koster’s bust!’ ”

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Steve Chawkins can be reached at 653-7561 or at steve.chawkins@latimes.com.