Photoplay (Jan - Jun 1919)

Nee Madge Kennedy And afterward —well,how can she be called else, after mal{ing a national acquaintance wader that name? By Dorothy Allison SOME people always seem to belong in a fragrant, old-fashioned garden, some belong in a huge, dim cathedral, and others, alas, in a dark, gloomy dungeon surrounded by a slimy moat. Madge Kennedy always seems to me to belong on a college campus. Not the high-brow part of it. heavens no' You couldn't imagine anyone less like the traditional idea of the academic woman than Madge Kennedy. But the jolly, slangy side of college life that goes in for midnight suppers and rushing freshmen and senior hops. Even her dressing-room out at the Goldwyn studios looks like a college girl's room in a sorority house. It is done all over in gay and festive cretonne and plastered with snap-shots of her friends. There is a scarlet tarn and a tennis racket on the window seat and a white jersey sweater huncr behind the ^^_^^^^_^^^^^^___ door. You almost look about for the dance program stuck in the mirror. Instead of dance programs there are costume sketches but the general effect is the same. And when Miss Kennedy jumped up from the window seat and said "How-are-you-awfully-glad-you-came" she looked so exactly like a college widow that I told her so. She smiled her sophomore smile at me. "That's funny." she said. "Because I started in life as something very like that. For about a year I was a student in the Art Academy here in New York." "You were going to be an artist?" I gasped, much impressed. "Not exactly an artist." she corrected. "But I thought perhaps I might be something like an illustrator. You know, the sort that illustrates stories with beautiful seven foot heroes and clinging vine heroines with huge eyes. I hadn't any very definite plan about it. My main idea was to get to New York. "You see, mother and I had been living in California and the art school gave us a good excuse to come East. Never shall I forget those first months in this city. I had a voung friend at the art school — he has become a successful illustrator since then — and we used to go across the river to Palisade Park and ride on everything in the place just like Fatty and Mabel. It was the thrill that comes once in a lifetime! "Then they started putting on private theatricals at the Academy. There was one little comedy the academy people liked so well that we gave it in "She always seems to me," says Miss Allison, "to belong on a college campus, though you can't imagine anyone less like the average academic woman." Originally, this young woman meant to be an illustrator. We wonder if she meant to find her model in a mirror? Carnegie Hall. One of the theatrical managers saw me in it and convinced me that as an illustrator I wasn't such a bad comedienne. So I went on the road. And i hat's how it happened." Miss Kennedy crossed her hands primly like a good child who has finished reciting a lesson. She has most extraordinarily expressive hands and these, with her big questioning eyes, have helped her to create a type which belongs to her alone whether on the stage or on the screen. It is the innocently sophisticated young girl or wife who extricates herself from an exceedingly Frenchy situation without the slightest suggestion of anything risque. She proved this in "Baby Mine" and "Fair and Warmer." both plays which might have had dangerous phases for any other actress. But Madge Kennedy could get away with murder in the shape of a doubtful line or situation even with Anthony Comstock applauding in the front row. These roles amuse her, but like all ambitious young women she does not care to be identified with any one character. "Sometime I am going to play something that is just a little bit sad," she told me. "Did you ever know a comedienne who did not want to play tragedy?" Well, hardly ever. But it isn't always such a bad idea at (Continued on page 102 )