Peggy Lipton

Peggy went through a troubled phase from the late 1960s to the early 1970s. During this period, she was involved with a series of men, most of them being married, alcoholic and abusive. She also has a history of drug use during this period. She has detailed this period of her life in her memoir ‘Breathing Out’, co-written by David and Coco Dalton.

After ‘The Mod Squad’ ended in 1973, she settled down with actor, humanitarian, and musician Quincy Jones. They got married in 1974. To concentrate on her family life, Peggy took a break from acting and only appeared in the TV movie ‘The Return of The Mod Squad’ in 1979.

She gave birth to Kidada Jones in 1974 and had another daughter Rashida Jones in 1976. Both of them, later, went on to become actresses.

Margaret Ann ‘Peggy’ Lipton was born on August 30, 1946 in New York City, New York. Her parents were Harold Lipton, a corporate lawyer and Rita Benson, an artist. Peggy was raised in an upper middle-class Jewish family.

As a kid, Peggy was raised on Long Island with her brothers, Robert and Kenneth. Later, Robert too, became an actor.

She attended Lawrence Junior High School and Professional Children’s School. She was described as a withdrawn and nervous child. She was also sexually abused by an uncle and used to stutter which sometimes made it difficult for her to even say her own name.

In 1964, the actress along with her family moved to Los Angeles. There she became fixated with meditation and yoga and describes herself during the phase as a ‘Topanga Canyon hippie’.

Peggy initially worked as a model in New York, taking up jobs that her father arranged. On the other hand, her mother urged her to take acting lessons.

She enjoyed a successful early career at the age of 15, when she joined the Ford Agency and worked for them as a model.

She signed a contract with Universal Pictures after she moved to Los Angeles in 1964 with her family.

At the age of 19, she debuted on television in the NBC sitcom ‘The John Forsythe Show’.

She appeared in a number of TV series including ‘Bewitched’, ‘The Invaders’, ‘The F.B.I’, ‘The Virginian’, ‘The Road West’, ‘The Alfred Hitchcock Hour’, and many more.

She was recognized as a singer when her single ‘Stoney End’ ranked 121 on the Billboard list in 1968.

In 1970, she hit the Billboard singles chart when two of her singles ‘Wear Your Love Like Heaven’ and ‘Lu’ charted number 108 and 102 respectively.

In 2002, she appeared on stage in‘Pitching to the Star’ with elder brother Robert Lipton and daughter Rashida Jones.

She appeared in a series of television commercials for Verizon FiOS.