PEGGY LIPTON
BORN : AUGUST 30, 1946
POSITION : ACTRESS,60S “IT GIRL”, MOTHER OF RASHIDA JONES
For Jewish women of my generation, learning that Peggy Lipton was Jewish is a gift immediately shared with every other Jewish baby-boomer we know. When we were young, as TV stars went, Peggy Lipton was the coolest. Every girl wanted to be her. She starred on The Mod Squad, so she was ipso facto mod, for starters. She was beautiful, with that perfect face and that long, straight blonde hair and those cool 60s outfits. The “squad” was multi-racial and countercultural and Peggy got Emmy nominations for somehow chasing criminals while still remaining groovy.
(The Mod Squad’s tagline was: "One White, One Black, One Blonde." Sigh. So, it wasn’t really all that counterculture-y, but hey, the guys wore headbands.)
Lipton’s beauty and out-of-sightness was such that she dated Keith Moon and Terrance Stamp. Oh, and let’s not forget Elvis Presley! Sammy Davis Jr.! Paul McCartney! And she ended up marrying the king of with-it, Quincy Jones. Not bad for a little Jewish girl from Brooklyn, eh?
Margaret Ann Lipton (Peggy for short) was the daughter of Rita Benson (born Rita Hetty Rosenberg) and Harold Lipton. Her family were religiously observant Jews. Her father was a successful attorney who graduated from Harvard Law School while her artist mother was a Jewish immigrant from Ireland whose family was prominent in Dublin’s then large Jewish community. Though born in Brooklyn, she was raised in Lawrence on Long Island.
Though she flirted with Scientology for a while (which was apparently a deal-breaker for Elvis), Peggy eventually wised up and went back to her Jewish roots, raising both her daughters as Jews (including Hebrew school).
Though best known for The Mod Squad, Lipton also starred in another hit in the 90s, Twin Peaks. Sadly, she died of cancer at 72.