Born in London in 1938, Kathryn Beaumont began acting as a young girl. In the late 1940s, she came to the United States under a contract from MGM. There, she appeared in the tropical musical On an Island with You (1948) and also made uncredited turns in Margaret O'Brien's The Secret Garden (1949) and Challenge to Lassie (1949), the cinematic canine's take on Greyfriars Bobby.
Shortly after, Beaumont was cast as both the voice and live-action model for Alice in Alice in Wonderland, Walt Disney's 1951 animated feature based on from the famous Lewis Carroll book. After Alice, Disney and his studio set their sights on adapting another celebrated piece of English literature, Peter Pan. Disney again turned to Beaumont, then 13 years old, to voice and act out the part of Wendy Darling, the eldest of three siblings who accompany the eternally young title hero to the adventurous Neverland.
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