Biography

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.
- IMDb mini biography by: Gina Petonito

Classically trained operatic voice

She forged a lifelong friendship with McHale's Navy Star Ernest Borgnine who also hailed from the New Haven, Connecticut area.

Her father, Vincent Mondo, worked for Paramount Publix Corporation and painted wall murals on Paramount owned theaters.

She and Robert Preston, Pert Kelton, and the barbershop quartet The Buffalo Bills were the only opening night "The Music Man" stage performers to make the transition to the silver screen.

When her agent told her of auditions for the new Broadway musical "The Music Man," Mondo prepared by dressing in a sailor top, long skirt, white stockings, black Mary Jane shoes and a curly blonde wig.