Kennedy, Madge

(1892-1987)

   Born in Chicago, Madge Kennedy began her theatrical career in 1910, but did not make a mark until she appeared in the long-running Salisbury Field-Margaret Mayo farce Twin Beds (1914), in which she played an innocent wife pursued by a drunken opera tenor. She followed this success with another farce, Avery Hopwood's Fair and Warmer (1915), costarring with Ralph Morgan and Janet Beecher, before embarking on a successful career in silent motion pictures. In the 1920s, Kennedy had three particular theatrical successes: the musical Poppy (1925) costarring with W. C. Fields, Philip Barry's comedy of manners Paris Bound (1927) as a young wife reckoning with her husband's infidelity, and the Albert Hackett* and Frances Goodrich* play Bridal Wise (1932). In the 1960s, Kennedy returned to the screen in small roles.