Madge Kennedy

Madge Kennedy (1891-1987) was an American stage and screen actress, who starred in the silent era, working for Goldwyn Pictures in the late 1910s and early 1920s, but would continue in several supporting parts between the 1950s and 1970s.


American postcard by K.Co. Inc., N.Y. Photo: Goldwyn Pictures.


British postcard by Rotary Photo, no. S 65-4. Photo: Moody, N.Y.


British postcard by Rotary Photo, no. S.65-1. Photo: Moody, New York.

Vincent van Gogh biopic

Madge Kennedy was born in 1891 in Chicago and grew up in California. She came to New York City with her mother at the age of 18, where she studied art and became a member of the Art Students League of New York.

She began acting in 1910 and made her Broadway debut in 1912 with the play 'Little Miss Brown'. She had two more successful Broadway shows with 'Twin Beds' and 'Fair and Warmer.

Then film producer Sam Goldwyn of Goldwyn Pictures had her sign a contract for 21 features in which she had the lead, the first ones to be two comedies, Baby Mine and Nearly Married, both dating 1917.

After performing in the 1926 drama Oh, Baby! and the 1928 short Walls Tell Tales, Kennedy decided to turn her back on film and was only to be found on the stage for the next 25 years.

She only returned as judge Anne B. Carroll in George Cukor's comedy The Marrying Kind (1952), followed by various films in the mid- and late 1950s such as the Vincent van Gogh biopic Lust for Life (Vincente Minnelli, 1956).


British postcard in the 'Famous Cinema Star' series by Beagles' Postcards, no. 153 C. Photo: Goldwyn.


British postcard by Rotary Photo, no. S 65-5. Photo: Moody, N.Y.


British postcard by Rotary Photo, no. S 65-6. Photo: Moody, N.Y.

They Shoot Horses, Don't They

While again away from the sets after 1960, Madge Kennedy returned in They Shoot Horses, Don't They (Sydney Pollack, 1969), and continued in the 1970s until her last film: The Marathon Man (John Schlesinger, 1976).

In parallel to acting, Kennedy also appeared on the radio. So she had the radio series 'Red Davis' together with Burgess Meredith, which was broadcast in 1934 on both NBC Radio and WJZ.

From the mid-1950s she had a prolific career on TV as well. Kennedy was married to the banker and businessman Harold Bolster from 1918 to 1927. To be closer to him, she asked Samuel Goldwyn in 1921 to be able to get out of her film contract to move back to New York City.

Her husband was a World War I war veteran and worked for New York Bank Bennett, Bolster & Coghill. During a business trip to South America, he contracted an illness from which he died in 1927. He bequeathed her a fortune of $ 500,000. In 1934, Kennedy married actor and radio host William B. Hanley, Jr.

Madge Kennedy died in the Motion Picture and Television Hospital in 1987. She has her star on the Walk of Fame at 1600 Vine Street. Film scholar Steve Massa writes us: "Practically all of her silent films are missing. I’ve managed to see The Danger Game (1918) which is delightful."


Vintage postcard.


British postcard in the Pictures Portrait Gallery by Pictures Ltd., London, no. 119.


British postcard by Cinema Chat for Sarony. Photo: Goldwyn Pictures.

Source: Wikipedia (English and German), and IMDb. And our special thanks to Steve Massa.