City to help a suddenly widowed Orval. The family, now including Orval and his children, all moved to Los Angeles with Gilbert. The move to Los Angeles, and the promise of fame, prompted Gilbert to adopt her mother's maiden name because "Knechtges" (kuh-NET-chiz) was too difficult to pronounce. At this time, there wasn't too much competition in Los Angeles because women jazz musicians were still finding their place in the business. Gilbert's first job in the city was with the vaudeville performers Irene Franklin and Juanita Connors. Fanchon and Marco In 1928, Gilbert auditioned for the vaudeville producers Fanchon "Fanny" Wolff Simon and Marco "Mike" Wolff, first touring with Rudy Wiedoeft and a sextet of saxophone players in a show titled "Saxophobia Idea." The show opened in October 1928 in Los Angeles, and toured San Diego, Hollywood, San Francisco, Salem, Seattle, Denver, Buffalo, Hartford, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, and many other cities. The tour was very well received and widely covered by the press. After the "Saxophobia" tour, Gilbert returned to Hollywood. She spent the spring and summer of 1929 as a saxophone player for an all-female group performing at El Mirador Hotel in Palm Springs. In October 1929, Gilbert performed in another Fanchon and Marco tour, the "Jazz Temple Idea." This yearlong tour helped Gilbert provide for her mother through the stock market crash of 1929. The show, which followed the same itinerary as the "Saxophobia" tour, was considered "a novelty." The next Fanchon and Marco tour in which Gilbert performed was the "Busy Bee Idea," a tour that traveled through the United States and Canada in 1930 and 1931. After this tour, Gilbert returned to Los Angeles, where she was doing studio work for MGM. Early 1930s By the end of the "Busy Bee" tour, the Great Depression was in full swing, and it was much more difficult to earn a living in show business. Gilbert started promoting herself as a bandleader, using connections to appear in several movies with her all-female band. They appeared as sideliners and usually did not receive screen credit, so it's hard to know exactly how many films they appeared in at MGM. However, Gilbert began promoting the band as Peggy Gilbert and the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Girls. Known film appearances include Politics (1931), Wet Parade (1932), and That's My Boy (1932). In 1932, Gilbert traveled throughout California, taking up various jobs with various bands.