Peggy Hopkins Joyce

(centering)

~1900, 5 year old 'Peggy' Margaret Upton, from Farmville, Virginia already exuding charm and confidence. With just a smile she could collect candy. As Peggy recollected in her memoir, all this attention spoiled her, and she used her beauty to open doors that were closed to most of her peers.

Sherburne Hopkins, 1913, At a Junior Prom dance, Peggy met Sherby

By Peggy's memoir written in 1930, "I was going to go home when up walked the handsomest man I had ever seen in my life and he said
My name is Hopkins. Will you dance this one with me, you are Miss Upton? I said I was.
I saw you as soon as I came in, the prettiest girl in the hall. Asked everybody for your name until I got it. Whats your first name?
I said my first name was Margaret but they call me Peggy
He said his name was Sherburne, but everyone calls him Sherby."

18 year old Peggy marries for a second time, to the millionaire lawyer, Sherburne Hopkins

1917, a young lanky and beauiful Peggy ran away from her second husband, to the city lights of New York. Trying to force Peggy to return back to Chicago, Mr. Hopkins cut off her allowance. Hungry and having to leave her hotel she was staying at cried at a dressmakers shop. The dressmaker recognized her, and offered to help. Contacting Florenz Ziegfeld who hired as a chorus girl, on $100 a week salary. Peggy Hopkins at that time was 22 years old

1917, photographer Alfred Cheney Johnston

1919, photographer Alfred Cheney Johnston

1919, photographed by News Syndicate, Peggy was 24 years old

1920, photographer Alfred Cheney Johnston

1920, photographer Alfred Cheney Johnston. Image used on the cover of "Gold Digger: The outrageous Life and Times of Peggy Hopkins Joyce". In one of her more memorable quotes to the local tabloids "New husband? Why, listen; I don’t know yet whether I’m divorced from the last one" she told one journalist. "But give me a few weeks in Paris and New York, and I’ll probably have one."

1920, photographer Alfred Cheney Johnston

1920, Peggy marries Stanley Joyce, the millionaire lumberman

1921, Peggy Hopkins Joyce after her divorce hearings against J. Stanley Joyce in Chicago as she exits the courtroom. Newspaper headlines "Peggy loses husband, but wins fortune in furs and gems" aged 26

1922, Peggy Joyce home again from Paris

Peggy Weeps for dead "Billy". A love triangle emerged in Paris between the french designer, Letellier and the young Chilean diplomat known as "Billy" (William Errazuriz)

Billy met Peggy in Paris, in a whirlwind romance for the next few days, Billy proposed. (Peggy's dairy) "I know now that I love Billy more than I ever loved anyone but I will never let him know. It would only bring unhappiness to everyone concerned. I will not come between a husband and wife that way."

The spurned lover then shot himself in the suite at the hotel next door to Peggys. The shocked Peggy lamented "now it's too late. I loved him, but I played with him. I dangled him on a string just as I did many others. Oh, why did I do it? I think I will go insane".

12 year old Peggy Upton

The one that got away
Professor Charles Vivian Jackson in 1936 had gotten engaged to marry Peggy Joyce, Charles was a British astronomy professor. Joyce claimed that Jackson was "the only man I ever loved." Then tragedy struck. Charles died in a sleighing accident when the couple were in St. Moritz in 1937, Peggy also was injured in the incident