When Peggy Cartwright talks about theater, it's like she's talking about her blood and oxygen supply.
In Wichita for a guest actress appearance in "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie," she was captured by the new Century II theater at first glance.
"One of the first things we did was go look at the theater," she said. "It brought out all those feelings just like it always does. I think it must be the same kind of feeling a seaman has when he goes to the wharves."
While she hasn't acted in about four years, Miss Cartwright maintains close ties to her acting career.
Her husband, William Walker, one of the great character actors since 1919, will appear in "The Great White Hope" next with James Earl Jones and Jane Alexander.
"I keep my hand in, also," she said. "Lately, I've been working on a television pilot script for which I have great hopes.
"It's based on the Poverty War in Los Angeles," she said.
Her intesest in the Los Angeles Poverty War efforts, she said, came about after having worked with the program for the past four years.
Her theater career, however, goes back to her fifth year.
"We lived in Vancouver, at the time," she said. "There was a scarlet fever epidemic. After I recovered, the doctors told my parents to get me away from that climate."
"So we went to Los Angeles," she adds.
It was a case of the right people seeing her, and the right role being open. She was signed to play baby Peggy in the "Our Gang" series of movies.
An acting career that spanned two continents and several years followed. She was included in "Who's Who in the Theater" before she was out of her teens.
After Hollywood, she studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London and then a long stint in musical comedy.
"I was a dancer. But in those days in London, if you auditioned you were very careful not to mention that you had studied at the Royal Academy. A producer would hear that and assume you were a prima donna," she said.
Her first role was in a musical with the Russian Ballet starring George Ballachine. "It was the first time ballet was used in a musical comedy and was probably way ahead of its time," she said.
The role of Jean Brodie appeals to Miss Carpenter(sic) for a number of reasons, she said.
"I went to school in Vancouver in a place very similar to the school where Jean Brodie teaches. It was called Crofton House and was operated by two old maid sisters named Gordon.
"Jean Brodie is much deeper than the surface character. It would be a mistake to concentrate on the comedy aspects.
"For instance, she had a very liberated view of sex that was way ahead of her time," she said.
Miss Cartwright said she had found it difficult to find a script of "Jean Brodie" even though it has been a novel, a Broadway and London theater production and now a movie.
"I finally had to write to London for a script. But what's even more confusing is that the play, the novel and the movie all approach the character from a different point of view."
"The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" will open at 6 p.m. Sunday (the 12th) in a special performance and then at 8:30 p.m. Sunday through Saturday, April 18, in the Century II theater.
While in Wichita, Miss Cartwright said she would like to take a look at local efforts in the fight against poverty.
Sidenote: The information on Peggy's Our Gang involvement is misleading at best. She wasn't Baby Peggy, which seems to be a conflation with the famous silent era child star, nor was this by any means the first work she did after arriving in Hollywood. Her stint in Our Gang happened four or five years after that.