Madge Kennedy

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Madge Kennedy (April 19, 1891 in California – June 9, 1987 in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California) was a movie and stage actress of the silent film era.

Kennedy came to New York City with her mother to paint. She was admitted to the Art Student's League. Luis Mora saw her art work and recommended that she go to Siasconset (Nantucket, Massachusetts) for a summer. Mora described Kennedy as talented but very lazy.

Theater

The Siasconset colony was evenly divided among actors and artists, and painters often gave theatrical performances. Kennedy appeared at a painter's play and impressed one of the professionals there. He commented, "She could act rings around anybody." The professional was Harry Woodruff who promptly offered her a job in his play, The Genius. Soon she was in Cleveland, Ohio where Robert McLaughlin gave her work with his stock company.

Kennedy first started out on Broadway with the show, Little Miss Brown. This was a farce in three acts presented at the 48th Street Theater in August 1912. Critics found Kennedy's performance most pleasing, writing, "Miss Kennedy's youth, good looks, and marked sense of fun helped her to make a decidedly favorable impression last night."

After making movies for three years she returned to the New York stage in November 1920. Kennedy played in Cornered, staged at the Astor Theatre. Produced by Henry Savage, the play was taken from the writing of Dodson Mitchell. Kennedy performed a dual role. She acted the character of a widow in the comedy Beware of Widows which was produced by the Maxine Elliott Theatre in December 1925. A reviewer for The New York Times remarked about Kennedy's physical beauty as well as her skill as a comedian.

She returned to Broadway in her later years, performing in August 1965 with Ruth Gordon, in A Very Rich Woman. That was her first stage appearance in 33 years.

Films

After Broadway, Sam Goldwyn of Goldwyn Pictures signed Kennedy to a big movie contract. Kennedy starred in movies such as Baby Mine (1917), Our Little Wife (1918) and Dollars and Sense (1920).

Kennedy told a reporter in 1916, I have discovered that one of the best ways to act is to make your mind as vacant as possible. In 1918 Our Little Wife premiered with Kennedy playing the role of Dodo Warren. The story is about a woman whose marriage is both humorous and sad. The screenplay was adapted from a comedy by Avery Hopwood. A Perfect Lady (1918) was released in December and was taken from a stage play by Channing Pollock and Rennold Wolf. Kennedy co-starred with James Montgomery. In 1923 she starred in The Purple Highway. The screenplay is an adaptation of the stage play Dear Me, written by Luther Reed and Hale Hamilton. The cast included Monte Blue and Emily Fitzroy.

The 1920s was a productive period for Kennedy. Following The Purple Highway she had prominent roles in Three Miles Out (1924), Scandal Sheet (1925), Bad Company (1925), Lying Wives (1925), Oh, Baby! (1926), Walls Tell Tales (1928).

She was out of motion pictures until she resumed her career in The Marrying Kind (1952) and Main Street To Broadway (1953). In the late 1950s she combined t.v. work with roles in movies like The Catered Affair (1956), Lust For Life (1956), Houseboat (1958), A Nice Little Bank That Should Be Robbed (1958), Plunderers of Painted Flats (1959), and North by Northwest (1959). She has an uncredited part as a secretary in the Marilyn Monroe film Let's Make Love (1960).

Her film career endured into the 1970s with roles in They Shoot Horses Don't They? (1969), The Banker (1970), The Day of the Locust (1975) and Marathon Man (1976).

Radio and television

As a guest on the Red Davis series (1934) over NBC Radio and WJZ (WABC-AM) network, Kennedy worked with Burgess Meredith who had the title role. She was written into the full script by the program's creator, Elaine Sterne Carrington.

Kennedy was prolific in terms of her television appearances beginning with an episode of the Schlitz Playhouse of Stars (1954). Her additional performances in television series are Studio 57 (1954), General Electric Theater (1954), Science Fiction Theater (1955), The Best of the Post (1961), Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1956 – 1961), The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (1962), Leave It to Beaver (1957 – 1963), The Twilight Zone (1963), and CBS Playhouse (1967).

Marriages

Kennedy requested her release from a contract with Sam Goldwyn. She decided to return to the stage in 1921, so that she could be close to her husband, broker Harold Bolster, in New York. Bolster died on August 3, 1927 from an illness he contracted months before during a business trip to South America. He was a member of the New York banking firm of Bennett, Bolster & Coghill. Bolster was 38 and a veteran of World War I. Kennedy inherited more than $500,000 when he died.

She wed William B. Hanley, Jr., in Kingman, Arizona, on August 13, 1934. Hanley was an actor and radio personality. The couple resided in Los Angeles, California. Kennedy retired temporarily after her marriage before returning to work in entertainment.

She enjoyed outdoor activities such as playing golf, horseback riding and driving cars. She owned a Willys-Knight Great Six which she drove avidly at the time she was touring in 1929 in the play, Lulu. In August 1929, she was sued in a Norwich, Connecticut court for damages she caused in a car accident on the Boston Post Road near Groton, Connecticut in June 1928. The plaintiffs asked for $13,000.

Madge Kennedy died in Woodland Hills, California in 1987. She has a "Star" on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

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