- Doris Kenyon
-
Doris Kenyon 
Born September 5, 1897
Syracuse, New York, United StatesDied September 1, 1979 (aged 81)
Beverly Hills, California, United StatesDoris Kenyon (September 5, 1897 – September 1, 1979) was a popular actress of motion pictures and television.
Contents
Youth
She grew up in Syracuse, New York, where her family had a home at 1805 Harrison Street. Her father, Dr. James B. Kenyon, was a Methodist Episcopal Church minister at University Church. Kenyon studied at Packer College Institute and later at Columbia University. She sang in the choirs of Grace Presbyterian and Bushwick Methodist Churches in Brooklyn, New York.
Her voice attracted the attention of Broadway theatrical scouts who enticed her to become a performer on the stage. She first appeared in the Victor Herbert operetta The Princess Pat.
Film career
In 1915 she made her first film, The Rack, with World Film Company of Fort Lee, New Jersey. One of the most remembered films of her early career is Monsieur Beaucaire (1924). In this production she starred opposite Rudolph Valentino.
She was with Paramount Pictures for the studio's first dramatic, all-talking movie, Intereference, in 1928.
Kenyon was cast opposite actor George Arliss in two films. These are Alexander Hamilton (1931) and Voltaire (1933). She participated in Counsellor at Law (1933) with John Barrymore. In the autumn of 1935 Doris appeared with Ramon Navarro in the play, A Royal Miscarriage, in London, England.
After sixty movies, Kenyon's picture career ended with a cameo in The Man in the Iron Mask (1939).
Television
Kenyon continued her acting career in television in the 1950s. She was cast in episodes of The Secret Storm (1954), Schlitz Playhouse of Stars, All Our Yesterdays (1958), and 77 Sunset Strip.
Following her film career she launched a singing career which she had first pursued as a girl. She gave this up to live in semi-retirement in Beverly Hills, California.
Marriages
Kenyon was married a number of times. Her first husband was the actor Milton Sills. He wed Kenyon in 1926. She was widowed in 1930. She had one son with Sills named Kenyon. She married prosperous New York real estate broker, Arthur Hopkins, in 1933. The two divorced the following year, citing incompatibility. In 1938 Doris married Albert D. Lasker, owner of Lord & Thomas, a prosperous advertising agency. They divorced in 1939. Her final marriage was to Bronislaw Mlynarski. He was the son of composer Emil Młynarski and the brother-in-law of Arthur Rubenstein.
Death
Doris Kenyon died in 1979 at her Beverly Hills home, of cardiac arrest, four days before her 82nd birthday.
In popular culture
In 1924 a newborn girl, Doris Kappelhoff, was named after Kenyon. Kappelhoff grew up to be singer and actress Doris Day. Many years later, Day would purchase a home in Beverly Hills that was "a few houses away from [her], on the very same street" from Kenyon's.[1]
Filmography
Silent
- The Rack (1915)
- Pawn of Fate (1916)
- The Feast of Life (1916)
- The Man Who Stood Still (1916)
- The Ocean Waif (1916)(*short)(Extant)
- The Traveling Salesman (1916)
- The Man Who Forgot (1917)
- A Girl's Folly (1917)(Extant)
- The Empress (1917)
- Jimmy Dale Alias the Grey Seal (1917)(*serial; uncredited)(Lost)
- On Trial (1917)
- The Great White Trail (1917)
- Strictly Business (1917) (*short)
- The Hidden Hand (1917)(*serial)(Lost)
- The Street of Seven Stars (1918)
- the Inn of the Blue Moon (1918)
- Wild Honey (1918 William L. Sherry/Film Clearing House)
- Twilight (1919 William L. Sherry/Film Clearing House)
- The Bandbox (1919 W.W. Hodkinson/Pathe Exchange)
- The Harvest Moon (1920 W.W. Hodkinson/Pathe Exchange)
- The Conquest of Canaan (1921 Famous Players-Lasky/Paramount)(Extant)
- Get-Rich-Quick-Wallingford (1921 FP-L/Paramount)
- Shadows of the Sea (1922 Selznick Pictures)
- The Ruling Passion (1922 United Artists)
- Sure-Fire Flint (1922 Mastodon Films)
- The Last Moment (1923 Goldwyn Pictures)
- You Are Guilty (1923 Mastodon Films)
- Bright Lights of Broadway (1923 Principal Distributing)
- Restless Wives (1924 CC Burr)
- The Love Bandit (1924 Vitagraph)
- Lend Me Your Husband (1924 CC Burr)
- Monsieur Beaucaire (1924 Paramount)(Extant)
- Born Rich (1924 First National)
- Idle Tongues (1924 Ince/First National)
- If I Marry Again (1925 First National)
- A Thief in Paradise (1925 First National)(Lost)
- I Want My Man (1925 First National)(Trailer only; Library of Congress)
- The Half-Way Girl (1925 First National)(Lost)
- The Unguarded Hour (1925 First National)(Lost)
- Men of Steel (1926 First National) (Lost)
- Mismates (1926 First National)(Lost)
- Ladies at Play (1926 First National)(Lost)
- The Blonde Saint (1926 First National)(Lost)
- The Valley of the Giants (1927 First National)(Extant; UCLA Film & TV)
- Burning Daylight (1928 First National)(Extant; Library of Congress)
- The Hawk's Nest (1928 First National)(Lost)
Talkies
- The Home Towners (1928 Warner Brothers)(Lost)
- Interference (1928 Paramount)
- Beau Bandit (1930 RKO)
- The Bargain (1931 First National/Warner Brothers)
- Alexander Hamilton (1931 Warner Brothers/The Vitaphone Corp.)
- The Road to Singapore (1931 Warner Brothers)
- The Ruling Voice (1931 First National/Warner Brothers)
- Young America (1932 Fox Film)
- The Man Called Back (1932 Tiffany Pictures)
- Voltaire (1933 Warner Brothers)
- No Marriage Ties(1933 RKO)
- Counsellor at Law (1933 Universal)
- Whom the Gods Destroy (1934 Columbia)
- The Human Side (1934 Universal)
- Along Came Love (1936 Paramount)
- Girl's School (1938 Columbia)
- The Man in the Iron Mask (1939 United Artists)
References
- ^ "Doris Day: My Own Story", by A.E. Hotchner. Bantam (1976)
- "Doris Kenyon Sills Dies, Known On and Off Screen". Los Angeles Times. 1979-09-10. p. B18.
- "Doris Kenyon and Hopkins To Be Married". Syracuse Herald. April 15, 1933. p. 2.
- "Will Play In England". Syracuse Herald. June 27, 1935. p. 14.
External links
Categories:- American Methodists
- 20th-century actors
- American television actors
- American silent film actors
- American film actors
- Vaudeville performers
- American singers
- People from New York
- People from Syracuse, New York
- 1897 births
- 1979 deaths
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