Legendary Femme Fatale Peggy Cummins of 'Gun Crazy' Dies at 92

Peggy Cummins, who was known for her role as the carnival sharpshooter turned murderous bank [...]

By Libby Birk

Peggy Cummins, who was known for her role as the carnival sharpshooter turned murderous bank robber in the sexually charged 1950 film noir classic Gun Crazy, has died. She was 92.

Cummins suffered a stroke and died Friday in a hospital in London surrounded by her family, her longtime friend Dee Kirkwood, a fellow trustee of Stars Foundation for Cerebral Palsy, told The Hollywood Reporter.

The Irish actress also starred in the Western Green Grass of Wyoming (1948) with Charles Coburn and in Jacques Tourneur's British horror classic Curse of the Demon (1957) opposite Dana Andrews.

In Gun Crazy, Cummins stepped in late in the game to replace Victoria Lake to portray "Annie" Laurie Starr. She spent time on a shooting range to brush up for her career-defining role as a traveling performer who picks Barton Tare (John Dall) out of a crowd and engages him in a shooting competition.

Before long, the manipulative Laurie marries Barton — an ex-Army marksman who has been obsessed with guns since he was a child — and they go on a crime spree.

"Peggy's performance, her Hollywood swan song, would galvanize the Gun Crazy production and earn her lasting fame as the tiniest, but most ferocious, femme fatale in the history of film noir," author Eddie Muller said in July as he introduced the film on Turner Classic Movies. (He wrote Gun Crazy: The Origin of American Outlaw Cinema, published in 2014.)

Gun Crazy also is known for its three-minute-plus tracking shot from the back seat of the car that Laurie and Barton use to rob a small-town bank and make their getaway.

"We made up the dialogue as we went along [during that scene]. Joe Lewis let us do that," Cummins pointed out during a 2013 Film Noir Foundation appearance in San Francisco.

Muller noted that Gun Crazy, released through United Artists under its original title Deadly Is the Female, was the only film from prolific producers Frank and Maurice King to lose money. "Today, it's seen as their crowning achievement," he said. Experts say it also inspired a host of French New Wave filmmakers.

She was born on Dec. 18, 1925, the youngest of three kids. Her mother, Margaret Tracy, was an actress; her father was a journalist and music teacher. She appeared on stages and in radio plays as a teenager and worked in such films as Dr. O'Dowd (1940) and Welcome, Mr. Washington (1944).

Cummins was spotted by a Fox talent scout after performing in Junior Miss in London for a few months.

"Fox made a big splash for me when I came over. I weighed 98 pounds and had an 18-inch waist," Cummins said at the 2012 TCM Classic Film Festival. "I went to Zanuck's party [at his home]. All these people were there, [Ernst] Lubitsch, Tyrone Power, Joan Crawford. I said hello as though I knew them. It was awesome. They were stars; I was an actress."

"The tendency, if you were a bit short, blonde and rather pretty, was for a conventional role, but this was quite a meaty part. An actor wants to play against type."

Cummins went on to make her Fox debut in the Joseph L. Mankiewicz comedy The Late George Apley (1947), starring as the daughter of Ronald Colman's wealthy Bostonian, then had lead roles in Moss Rose (1947), playing a Cockney singer-dancer opposite Victor Mature; Green Grass of Wyoming; and Escape (1948) with Rex Harrison before the end of her Fox contract.

She left the U.S. in 1950 — not to return for decades — and starred in such films as Operation X (1950) with Edward G. Robinson; Hell Drivers (1957), directed by the blacklisted Cy Endfield; and Curse of the Demon, in which she and Andrews' psychologist character investigate a mysterious death.

She retired from acting in the mid-1960s. She married the late London businessman Derek Dunnett in 1950. Cummins is survived by her son David and daughter Diana.

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