‘Meg’ From ‘Hollywood’ Is Based on the Most Heartbreaking Tale About an Aspiring Actress

Warning: Spoilers ahead for Netflix’s Hollywood season 1. In Ryan Murphy’s Hollywood, Peg (later retitled as Meg) is the hottest movie in town that everyone wants a part in. But is Peg/Meg based on a real movie? Netflix’s Hollywood follows a circle of aspiring actors and filmmakers as they try to make it in the entertainment industry. The seven-episode series centers on the upcoming film Peg, inspired by the death of British actress Peg Entwistle who killed herself by jumping off the Hollywoodland sign in 1932.

If it wasn’t clear by now, Peg is based on a real story but not a real movie: Peg Entwistle, a British stage and screen actress whose real name was “Millicent Lillian Entwistle,” moved to Los Angeles in May 1932 to perform in Robert Brent’s play The Mad Hopes. After the play closed in June, Entwistle could only find work on one film, Thirteen Women, which bombed at the box office and didn’t receive any critical acclaim.

On September 18, 1932, a woman hiking below the Hollywoodland found a woman’s shoes, purse and jacket. When she opened the purse, she found a suicide note. She then saw Entwistle’s body at the bottom of the mountain. it took a while for the body to be identified until the police published the note in the newspaper and connected that the “P.E.” on the letter were Entwistle’s initials. They later determined that Entwistle climbed a ladder on the “H” of the Hollywoodland sign and jumped. Entwistle’s note read: “I am afraid, I am a coward. I am sorry for everything. If I had done this a long time ago, it would have saved a lot of pain.” Her death became sensationalized in the media. In 2014, ore than 100 people showed up on the anniversary of her death to watch Thirteen Women on an outdoor movie screen, with proceeds going towards the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

Netflix.

So Entwistle’s death is the premise behind Peg. But other than the inspiration, the rest of Hollywood is fictionalized, especially the part where there was a film about, which was retitled as Meg after a black actress is cast as the lead. In Hollywood, Camille Washington, an aspiring actress at ACE Pictures, is cast as the lead in Peg with the help of her boyfriend, Raymond Ainsley, and several executives at ACE Pictures, such as the founder’s wife Avis Amberg, who want to see change in the entertainment industry. The film is retitled as Meg and rewritten so the lead doesn’t kill herself. Instead, Meg climbs down from the Hollywoodland sign after he boyfriend finds her. Meg becomes the biggest box office success in years and wins Camille an Oscar. She also becomes the first black woman to win an Academy Award for Best Lead Actress.