[2] Having an interest in both writing and history since her youth, Montgomery found a second career as an author and silent film historian in her later years under the name Diana Serra Cary.

[8] Baby Peggy was "discovered" at the age of 19 months, when she visited Century Studios on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood with her mother and a film-extra friend.

Impressed by Peggy's well-behaved demeanor and willingness to follow directions from her father, director Fred Fishback hired her to appear in a series of short films with Century's canine star Brownie the Wonder Dog.

Her films often spoofed full-length motion pictures, social issues and stars of the era; in one, Peg O' The Movies, she satirized both Rudolph Valentino and Pola Negri.

She also appeared in film adaptations of novels and fairy tales, such as Hansel and Gretel and Jack and the Beanstalk, contemporary comedies, and a few full-length motion pictures.

She was also featured in several short skits on major stages in Los Angeles and New York City, including Grauman's Million Dollar Theatre and the Hippodrome.

She was also named the Official Mascot of the 1924 Democratic Convention in New York City, and stood onstage waving a United States flag next to Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

She was generally required to perform her own stunts, which included being held underwater in the ocean until she fainted (Sea Shore Shapes), escaping alone from a burning room (The Darling of New York), and riding underneath a train car (Miles of Smiles).

[15] Baby Peggy's film career abruptly ended in 1925 when her father had a falling out with producer Sol Lesser over her salary and canceled her contract.

[14] She found herself essentially blacklisted due to actions of her father with his studio boss, and was able to land only one more part in silent films, a minor role in the 1926 picture April Fool.

Although her routine, which included a comedy sketch, singing and a dramatic monologue, was initially met with skepticism, it soon became a popular and respected act.

In What Ever Happened to Baby Peggy?, she wrote, "On several occasions I went onstage so yellow-dog sick they had to put buckets in the wings: I threw up in one before I made my entrance, and in the second when I exited, before changing and going back out for my encore."

[15] Peggy's parents continued to spend excessively after she had been pushed out of films, wasting on unnecessary luxuries much of the US$2 million she had made.

The Montgomerys had to sell their Beverly Hills home and, having made a $75,000 deposit on the land and existing property, moved to rural Wyoming where they lived near the Jelm Mountains.

She stated in a 2012 interview that she was paid three dollars a day, and many of the other extras were other silent actor stars that she grew up with, and collectively they considered the work to be like that of "galley slaves".

Working at the time as a writer for radio shows, she found that people who figured out her identity were more interested in her Baby Peggy persona than in her writing abilities.

[2] Eventually, after years of emotional struggle and open derision from Hollywood insiders and the media,[14] Cary made peace with her Baby Peggy past.

At the end of her own autobiography, she recounts the fates of numerous child stars, including Judy Garland and Shirley Temple.

[18] At the age of seventeen, trying to escape the film industry and her parents' plans for her life, Cary ran away from home and rented an apartment with her sister Louise.

[22] On November 8, 2008, ten days after her 90th birthday, Cary was honored at the Edison Theatre in Niles, California, with a screening of two of her feature films, Helen's Babies and Captain January.

[3] On December 3, 2012, Turner Classic Movies first presented the 2011 documentary Baby Peggy: The Elephant in the Room,[25] and has since reaired on various occasions, such as alongside the first broadcast of the Library of Congress-restored version of The Family Secret on October 25, 2015, to mark Cary's 97th birthday.

Too ill to attend, Lasky flew to Gustine, California and recorded an interview with Cary where she talked about making the film and of its co-stars, Clara Bow and Edward Everett Horton.

In addition, fragments of some works, including The Law Forbids, The Darling of New York and Little Red Riding Hood have surfaced and been restored.