Peggy Mondo(1927-1991)
- Actress
Peggy Mondo played the proverbial "fat lady" of stage and screen. The
daughter of ecclesiastical painter Vincent Elipidio Mondo and Emma A.
Spignesi, she hailed from New Haven, Connecticut. Beginning her career
as a Connecticut Experimental Theater member in the 1950s, she studied
voice under the tutelage of 'Francesco Riggio' and 'Hilda Whitworth
Riggio', the company's directors. She fulfilled her lifelong desire to
perform on 'Broadway' in 1957 upon winning the part of Ethel Toffelmeir in
The Music Man. She reprised the role in the film version The Music Man (1962). She
is remarkably light on her feet in the Shipoopi spectacular with
Buddy Hackett. Following this success, Mondo launched her career as a
character actress in film and television. She also played the sister
with the remarkable voice in the "Landrews Sisters" sketch in the
Jack Benny Las Vegas act.
