Peg Phillips

Who was Peg Phillips?

Peg Phillips was an American actress best known for playing storekeeper Ruth-Anne Miller on the television series Northern Exposure.

Phillips was born Margaret Linton in Everett, Washington, to Charles and Myrtle Linton. She wanted to be an actress from the age of four and performed in dinner theater as a hobby. She was the wife of Daniel Greene, a Navy man stationed in the Territory of Hawaii when the attack on Pearl Harbor occurred. She was married to Chester Phillips in the 1950s, during which time she suffered a near-fatal bout of "polio and a serious abdominal infection". Both marriages ended in divorce. She had three daughters, Elizabeth, Kathy, and Virginia, and a son, Arthur.

She lived with Kathy, Virginia and Arthur in Santa Cruz, California, in the early to mid-1960s. Her oldest daughter, Elisabeth, had left the household. She worked as an accountant at Sweet Service in Santa Cruz during that time. She was involved with local theatrical groups; her favorite play was Bell, Book and Candle. After retiring from accounting, Phillips moved back to Washington to enroll in drama school at the University of Washington, but never completed her degree "because I started getting so much work."