Doris Kenyon was a popular actress of motion pictures and television.

Youth

She grew up in Syracuse, New York

Syracuse, New York

Syracuse is a city in and the county seat of Onondaga County, New York, United States, the largest U.S. city with the name "Syracuse", and the fifth most populous city in the state. At the 2010 census, the city population was 145,170, and its metropolitan area had a population of 742,603...

, where her family had a home at 1805 Harrison Street. Her father, Dr. James B. Kenyon, was a Methodist Episcopal Church

Methodist Episcopal Church

The Methodist Episcopal Church, sometimes referred to as the M.E. Church, was a development of the first expression of Methodism in the United States. It officially began at the Baltimore Christmas Conference in 1784, with Francis Asbury and Thomas Coke as the first bishops. Through a series of...

 minister at University Church. Kenyon studied at Packer College Institute and later at Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

. She sang in the choirs of Grace Presbyterian and Bushwick Methodist Churches in Brooklyn, New York.

Her voice attracted the attention of Broadway

Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

 theatrical scouts who enticed her to become a performer on the stage. She first appeared in the Victor Herbert

Victor Herbert

Victor August Herbert was an Irish-born, German-raised American composer, cellist and conductor. Although Herbert enjoyed important careers as a cello soloist and conductor, he is best known for composing many successful operettas that premiered on Broadway from the 1890s to World War I...

 operetta The Princess Pat

The Princess Pat

The Princess Pat is an operetta in three acts with music by Victor Herbert and book and lyrics by Henry Blossom. After an Atlantic City, New Jersey tryout in August 1915, it premiered on Broadway on September 29, 1915 at the Cort Theatre and ran for 158 performances...

.

Film career

In 1915 she made her first film, The Rack, with World Film Company of Fort Lee, New Jersey

Fort Lee, New Jersey

Fort Lee is a borough in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the borough population was 35,345. Located atop the Hudson Palisades, the borough is the western terminus of the George Washington Bridge...

. One of the most remembered films of her early career is Monsieur Beaucaire (1924). In this production she starred opposite Rudolph Valentino

Rudolph Valentino

Rudolph Valentino was an Italian actor, and early pop icon. A sex symbol of the 1920s, Valentino was known as the "Latin Lover". He starred in several well-known silent films including The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, The Sheik, Blood and Sand, The Eagle and Son of the Sheik...

.

She was with Paramount Pictures

Paramount Pictures

Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...

 for the studio's first dramatic, all-talking movie,
Intereference, in 1928.

Kenyon was cast opposite actor George Arliss

George Arliss

George Arliss was an English actor, author and filmmaker who found success in the United States. He was the first British actor to win an Academy Award.-Life and career:...

 in two films. These are Alexander Hamilton

Alexander Hamilton (film)

Alexander Hamilton is a 1931 American biographical film about Alexander Hamilton, based on a play by George Arliss and Mary Hamlin. It was directed by John G. Adolfi and stars Arliss in the title role...

(1931) and Voltaire

Voltaire (film)

Voltaire is a 1933 biographical film starring George Arliss as the renowned 18th century French writer and philosopher.-Cast:*George Arliss as Voltaire*Doris Kenyon as Madame Pompadour*Margaret Lindsay as Nanette Calas...

(1933). She participated in Counsellor at Law

Counsellor at Law

Counsellor at Law is a 1933 American drama film directed by William Wyler. The screenplay by Elmer Rice is based on his 1931 play of the same title.-Plot:...

(1933) with John Barrymore

John Barrymore

John Sidney Blyth , better known as John Barrymore, was an acclaimed American actor. He first gained fame as a handsome stage actor in light comedy, then high drama and culminating in groundbreaking portrayals in Shakespearean plays Hamlet and Richard III...

. 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

The Man in the Iron Mask (1939 film)

The Man in the Iron Mask is a 1939 American film very loosely adapted from the last section of the novel The Vicomte de Bragelonne by Alexandre Dumas, père, which is itself based on the French legend of 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

The Secret Storm

The Secret Storm is a soap opera which ran on CBS from February 1, 1954 to February 8, 1974. The series was created by Roy Winsor, who also created the long-running soap operas Search for Tomorrow and Love of Life...

(1954), Schlitz Playhouse of Stars

Schlitz Playhouse of Stars

Schlitz Playhouse of Stars, is a weekly CBS anthology television series, was telecast on Friday nights from 1951 until 1959. Offering both comedies and drama, the series was sponsored by Schlitz beer...

, All Our Yesterdays

All Our Yesterdays (TV series)

All Our Yesterdays was a television programme, produced by Granada Television, which ran weekly from 1960 to 1973 and from 1987 to 1989. The format was snippets of newsreels shown in cinemas 25 years ago that week...

(1958), and 77 Sunset Strip

77 Sunset Strip

77 Sunset Strip is an hour-length American television private detective series created by Roy Huggins and starring Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., Roger Smith, and Edd Byrnes....

.

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

Beverly Hills, California

Beverly Hills is an affluent city located in Los Angeles County, California, United States. With a population of 34,109 at the 2010 census, up from 33,784 as of the 2000 census, it is home to numerous Hollywood celebrities. Beverly Hills and the neighboring city of West Hollywood are together...

.

Marriages

Kenyon was married a number of times. Her first husband was the actor Milton Sills

Milton Sills

Milton Sills was a highly successful American stage and film actor of the early twentieth century....

. 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

Doris Day

Doris Day is an American actress, singer and, since her retirement from show business, an animal rights activist. With an entertainment career that spanned through almost 50 years, Day started her career as a big band singer in 1939, but only began to be noticed after her first hit recording,...

. 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.

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
  The Conquest of Canaan
  The Conquest of Canaan is a silent film drama produced by Famous Players-Lasky and distributed by Paramount Pictures. It starred Thomas Meighan and Doris Kenyon and was directed by Roy William Neill...
  
  (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
  The Valley of the Giants (1927 film)
  The Valley of the Giants is a 1927 silent film adventure directed by Charles Brabin and starring Milton Sills and Doris Kenyon who were real-life man and wife. It was based on a by Peter B. Kyne. First National produced and distributed the film having gained the screen rights to the story from...
  
  (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
  Alexander Hamilton (film)
  Alexander Hamilton is a 1931 American biographical film about Alexander Hamilton, based on a play by George Arliss and Mary Hamlin. It was directed by John G. Adolfi and stars Arliss in the title role...
  
  (1931 Warner Brothers/The Vitaphone Corp.)
• The Road to Singapore (1931 Warner Brothers)
• The Ruling Voice (1931 First National/Warner Brothers)
• Young America
  Young America (1932 film)
  Young America was a film first adapted for the screen by Maurine Watkins from the play by Fred Ballard . William M. Conselman rewrote the screenplay and Maurine's name no longer appeared on the credits . The film was directed by Frank Borzage.-Cast:* Spencer Tracy .....
  
  (1932 Fox Film)
• The Man Called Back (1932 Tiffany Pictures)
• Voltaire
  Voltaire (film)
  Voltaire is a 1933 biographical film starring George Arliss as the renowned 18th century French writer and philosopher.-Cast:*George Arliss as Voltaire*Doris Kenyon as Madame Pompadour*Margaret Lindsay as Nanette Calas...
  
  (1933 Warner Brothers)
• No Marriage Ties(1933 RKO)
• Counsellor at Law
  Counsellor at Law
  Counsellor at Law is a 1933 American drama film directed by William Wyler. The screenplay by Elmer Rice is based on his 1931 play of the same title.-Plot:...
  
  (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)

External links