Peggy Cravens, valley philanthropist who supported arts and education, dies at 91

Peggy Cravens, a former child singing star who became a philanthropic force in the Coachella Valley supporting causes including College of the Desert, the Palm Springs International Piano Competition, ACT for MS, the Palm Springs Air Museum, the McCallum Theatre and the Palm Springs Opera Guild, died Friday after a brief illness. She was 91.

Cravens had a passion for the performing arts and supporting young people in educational and artistic endeavors. She and her late husband, Donald Cravens, a renowned photojournalist for Life magazine, donated $3.5 million to COD for a Student Services Center at the Palm Desert campus. It opened in 2010. At the time, it was the largest individual gift in the school's history.

They also donated funds to the Palm Springs Air Museum, where the Donald and Peggy Cravens Hangar houses aircraft of the European theater of World War II. Donald Cravens was part of the D-Day invasion and documented the war in still photos and films.

She was president of the College of the Desert Foundation from 2000 to 2002 and remained on the board until her death. She was also chairman of the board of the Palm Springs International Piano Competition (formerly known as the Waring International Piano Competition).

In the late 1990s, Cravens was instrumental in reviving and expanding the contest, which originated as the Joanna Hodges Piano Competition and hosts eight days of an international piano competition every other year with participants coming from around the world.

She also served on the boards of the Palm Springs Art Museum, the Palm Springs Opera Guild and ACT for MS, as well as a Rancho Mirage cultural commissioner.  Among those who worked with her on organizing benefits and galas, Cravens was famous, or infamous, for what friend Sandra Woodson called her "devilish attention to detail," "naughty wit" and get-things-done approach.

She had a passion for entertaining, often hosting friends for dinner parties in her Rancho Mirage home and throwing herself a 90th birthday party at the Ritz-Carlton in 2021, which she billed as the "74th anniversary of her sweet 16."

Former COD President William Kroonen, speaking at that event, recalled that when he first met Cravens, he had the mistaken impression that she was "a lot of talk, but not very much do."

"Well," he said, shaking his head that he couldn't have been more wrong, "need I say more?"

Kroonen called her "a beacon of determination and understanding."

Joel Kinnamon, another former COD president, called Cravens a "beacon of light" and said her "decades of support and commitment to students and the College of the Desert Foundation is everlasting."

Joe Giarrusso, the president of the Palm Springs International Piano Competition, said Cravens was an "exceptional listener" but "what blew me away more than anything was her business savvy."

"She wanted everyone around her to be better off," said former Palm Springs Mayor Robert Moon, who served with Cravens on the COD Foundation board. "She was a woman of grace, character, compassion, brains and beauty."

Palm Springs philanthropist Harold Matzner said Cravens "did a tremendous amount for the valley, bringing it things it wouldn't have had otherwise, like the Waring."

"She was the heart of the Waring and made it great," he added. "She never stopped. Her energy was incredible."

Cravens grew up in North Bergen, New Jersey, and made her first radio appearance when she was 3 years old, singing, “Silver Threads Among the Gold” on WHOM-New Jersey. At age 10, she was the national winner of the "Major Bowes Amateur Hour," a singing competition that could be equated to today's “American Idol.”

She won an audition with the Theatre Guild two years later and was asked to join the national touring company of “Oklahoma!” However, her father insisted she stay in school.

Cravens worked in summer stock theater and trained with a famed Metropolitan Opera baritone, John Brownlee, in high school.  As a teenager, she replaced Dorothy Morrow on Broadway in the 1950 Frank Loesser musical, “Where’s Charley?” starring Ray Bolger. For a decade, she performed under the stage name Peggy Willard, singing in supper clubs and appearing on television. She sang on “Perry Como’s Kraft Music Hall” TV show in the early 1960s.

She left show business in 1961 after marrying Irving Koerner, a New York investment banker with Allen & Company. She became active in charitable causes and among the major New York charity events she helped present were Frank Sinatra’s benefits for the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center at the Metropolitan Opera and Rockefeller Center.  She chaired a benefit for the Museum of the City of New York and was a supporter of the Metropolitan Opera, serving on many gala committees for new productions at The Met.

She and Koerner began vacationing in Palm Springs in 1971. They joined Tamarisk County Club in 1978 and bought an apartment at Desert Island in Rancho Mirage in 1981, where she lived until her death with her beloved Cavalier King Charles dogs.

After Irving Koerner died of Alzheimer’s disease in 1991, Peggy met Donald Cravens at the White House in Washington while attending a Ford’s Theatre Foundation benefit. They married in 1992. Donald Cravens died in 2013.

Ann Greer, a friend who worked closely with Cravens on ACT for MS and the Waring, recalled that whatever Cravens did, she wanted to do it well. That meant rehearsing speeches or taking horseback riding lessons before joining a riding group. "When she did something, she wanted to do it to the best of her ability," Greer said.

Woodson and another close friend, Twila Wernicke, said Cravens maintained her high sense of style — blonde hair coiffed impeccably, nails and makeup done — through her final days as she reviewed her affairs. Wernicke called Cravens an "organizational master."

"I told her, 'Peggy, I hope God's ready for you up there. He probably doesn't realize it's all been rather second-rate, but you can help him tidy it up for us so it'll be fabulous when we get there,'" Wernicke recalled with a laugh.

A memorial service will be held sometime in December, Wernicke said.

This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Philanthropist Peggy Cravens, patron of arts and education, dies at 91