Kay Kendall: The Blythe Spirit of Withernsea

Justine Kay Kendall McCarthy was born on 21 May 1927 at Stanley House, Hull Road, Withernsea, near Hull in Yorkshire. She was the youngest child of Justin McCarthy a variety artiste, professionally known as "Terry Kendall", and, Gladys Drewery, who was a dancer. Kay's paternal grandmother, Marie Kendall, had been a famous star of the music-hall, who had married Stephen McCarthy, a Canadian songwriter. When Kay’s father formed a song and dance team with his sister Pat, they retained their mother's famous name, performing in revue as “Pat and Terry Kendall”. Acting and performing was in the family genes.

Kay Kendall attended various schools, including St Leonard's in Brighton, and the Lydia Kyasht Dancing Academy in London.  At the outbreak of war in 1939 Kay and her sister Kim, who was two years older, were evacuated to St Margaret’s convent school in Oban, Scotland. The family had often been separated through work, and in 1940 their parents divorced.

The 2 girls joined their mother in London, where, despite being only in their teens, they had  the height and looks to find work as chorus girls.. Kim appeared in revue at the Holborn Empire with Tommy Trinder, and then went to The London Palladium in a new review “Gangway” (1941). Kay joined her in the chorus and eventually became one of the students in the Rank charm-school.

After two years, touring in George Black revues, the sisters formed a double act, appearing in ENSA troop shows and on the variety circuit. Kay also worked as a fashion model, and in 1944 began to get small parts in films—“Fiddlers Three” and “Champagne Charlie” with Tommy Trinder; and “Dreaming” with Bud Flanagan and Chesney Allen.

At 19, she got a leading part in “London Town” (1946) which was a reckless attempt by Rank Studios to emulate the Hollywood musical. Rank had decided that what glamour-starved England needed in 1946 was a musical about the family problems of an old trouper full of music-hall songs. The film starred Petula Clark and another comic, Sid Field, and Kendall was his leading lady. London Town became famous only for the money it lost. The film was a disaster, and ‘when it flopped—I flopped with it’ said Kendall.  

Kendall returned to the stage, learning her craft in provincial repertory theatres. Trying films again she could only get small roles, until an admired performance on television—in the play “Sweethearts and Wives”—was seen by Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat, who cast her in “Lady Godiva Rides Again” (1951); she got good notices and more offers.

What finally rescued her, in 1953, was an odd little comedy for Rank, called “Genevieve” (1953). Kendall's performance as a trumpet-playing fashion model, taken along by Kenneth More on the London to Brighton vintage car rally, was widely praised and the film was a massive hit. The part was tailor-made and the first to exploit her gift ‘for remaining soignée while being bumped or slapped around’.  Genevieve showed off Kendall's rare talent for being both funny and sexy - and, even rarer, both at once, so much so that the Catholic Times warned readers that her presence in the film gave it "unsavoury... smut". 

This is not apparent today and Genevieve is one of the most likeable films ever made and one I enjoyed watching many times as a child. 

END SCENE FROM GENEVIEVE

TRUMPET SCENE FROM GENEVIEVE

Kendall was again unlucky with her next few films and the momentum was lost. Still under contract to Rank, Kendall was a prisoner of its mediocre-at-best writers and directors, who, after her hit as a naughty, lively girl in Genevive, put her in “The Square Ring”, a drama with ponderous dialogue, pincushion-shaped costumes, and a wig that, she said, made her look like "Danny Kaye in drag".

She returned to the stage in Noël Coward's “Blithe Spirit” with Dennis Price and Irene Handl, a performance that even pleased the author himself. Perhaps our greatest loss is that this, Kendall's most sympathetic role of all, was never captured on film. Only in a British touring company did she play Elvira in Coward's comedy about a ghost who has a high old time making trouble for her former husband and his second wife. Reproached for her mischief, she merely shrugs. "Why shouldn't I have fun?" she says. "I died young, didn't I?” These prophetic words almost summed up Kendall’s life and tragic early death in one succinct sentence.

She followed this up with the even more popular first film in the Doctor series, the comedy “Doctor in the House” (1954) with Dirk Bogarde. She was still under contract to the Rank Organisation but was unhappy with the parts offered, turning down “Value For Money” (1955), “As Long As You're Happy” (1955) and “Doctor at Sea”(1955).  She did appear in the drama film “Simon and Laura” (1955) with Peter Finch; the comedy film “Abdulla the Great” (1955) with Sydney Chaplin and Gregory Ratoff; and the epic historical film “The Adventures of Quentin Durward” (1955), with Robert Taylor and Robert Morley. In October and November 1957, she appeared in two episodes of the short-lived American television series “The Polly Bergen Show”, a comedy-variety show on NBC.

 SIMON AND LAURA TRAILER WITH PETER FINCH (1955)

She began to fight for better film roles. Suffering salary suspension for her pains, she was finally loaned to London Films to appear as one of the wives of Rex Harrison in “The Constant Husband” (1955). This was a role she would soon play out in life, as she and Harrison fell in love and began an affair. Kendall wanted to marry him so badly that she even nagged him about it in public. She seemed totally oblivious to the fact that her behavior - lots of plate-smashing, followed by torrid making up - was not a good audition for a wife role, and the fact that Harrison was already married to someone else was also a huge factor!

The affair would probably have run its course if had Kendall not fallen ill. Rex Harrison was called in by Kendall's doctor in January 1957. What followed was a bizarre romantic drama with a plot that owed more to three-handkerchief movies than to medical ethics. Kendall actually had leukemia. The Doctor asked Harrison if Kendall had a family. The stunned Harrison said she did not – or at least none that she cared about - a remark for which Kendall‘s sister, Kim, never forgave him. The doctor said, in that case Harrison must marry her, care for her, and keep her illness a secret for the two years she had left - which he did. This conspiracy, supposed to shield her from the real truth, meant that Kendall was never told of her illness by Harrison or her Doctor and ended up believing she merely had an anemic iron deficiency.

Harrison was still married to actress Lilli Palmer at the time but Palmer agreed to a divorce as she too had a lover. Palmer and Harrison planned to divorce and then remarry after Kendall's death, but Palmer ended up falling for her lover, actor Carlos Thompson, and married him instead.

Rex Harrison and Kay Kendall were married in New York on 25 June 1957. Harrison threw all his acting skill into reassuring Kendall that her dizzy spells and need for blood transfusions were the result of anemia, but his nervous tension and need for supporting players led him to confide in too many others. Kendall's closest friend, Dirk Bogarde, who knew the truth, was sure that she knew it too.

Rex Harrison was not her first lover. Her sister Kim recalled “Before Kay became very well-known, we were both young and very attractive and places like the Ambassador’s Club, places where upper-class people went, made us Honorary Members. I didn’t have many aristocratic boyfriends but Kay did. She had a lot of them. Billy Wallace was absolutely crazy about her. They called him ‘the chinless wonder,’ and it was thought that he was going to marry Princess Margaret. That was until the gossip columns revealed that he was seen leaving Kay’s apartment in the wee small hours.”

Early in her career, Kay Kendall had a lengthy romance with actor Sydney Chaplin, the second son of Charlie Chaplin. She also had affairs with a Swedish prince and the grocery heir James Sainsbury. 

There were reports that Kay had a romantic dalliance with the future Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. Her sister Kim recalled “They gave a big party in Palm Beach for Prince Philip a few years ago.  It was for some English charity. I was on the committee and I’d arranged for the famous Palm Beach Pipes and Drums to be there to make it especially festive. Then the chairman asked me if I wanted to meet Prince Philip, and presented me: ‘This is Mrs. Campbell. Her sister was Kay Kendall, the film star.’ The Prince, politely and discreetly, replied, ‘Oh really? How very interesting!”

Her personality was bred in the bone - she seems to have been much the same fun-loving type off-screen, though far more uninhibited. Wildly generous and extravagant, she played practical jokes, carried on in a shrieking, highly theatrical manner, and liked to create a resounding silence by exclaiming "Oh, shit!" or worse in the kind of restaurants that required full evening dress.

Loaned to MGM, In Hollywood, Kendall was a huge success, starring alongside Gene Kelly, Taina Elg and Mitzi Gaynor, in “Les Girls” (1957) which told the story of three showgirls in post-war Paris. Kendall stole the limelight and won a Best Actress Golden Globe Award for her performance as Lady Sybil Wren in the musical-comedy., Her dizzy charm was perfect for the role, whether she was swinging grandly from a chandelier or hoofing joyously with Kelly in Cole Porter's "You're Just Too, Too".

 KAY KENDALL AND GENE KELLY "YOU'RE JUST TOO TOO"

The Fifties were having the stuffing kicked out of them, but sadly it was too late for Kendall to join in the fun. She made one more good film with Harrison, “The Reluctant Débutante” (1958), and he also directed her in a play, “The Bright One”, which closed after a few days.  

As Harrison's second wife in The Reluctant Debutante, Kendall plays second fiddle to her stepdaughter, Sandra Dee, and flaps about hysterically at the idea that Dee might spend five minutes alone with an unsuitable boy. The movie was a bellwether of films to come, in which the young, the rebellious and the ordinary took the spotlight. 

Kendall’s own anarchic high spirits had been restrained for so long, and she was now too old and too posh for the youth-quake on screen, even if she was attuned to its spirit in real life. The author of the play on which the film was based, William Douglas-Home, was visiting Kendall & Harrison, when the phone rang. Harrison called for Kay to answer the phone, even though she was in the bath. Wearing only a towel, she took the call, waved merrily to Douglas-Home, whom she had never met, and returned to the tub. The towel was on her head - the rest of her was butt-naked and she didn't bat an eyelid!

In 1959, She had been undergoing more medical treatment, which she still thought was for her anemia and had been admitted to the London Clinic, Devonshire Place, London

As she lay dying she denied that she was seriously ill, perhaps to convince herself, perhaps to spare Harrison's feelings as he believed he was sparing hers.  As sad as Kendall's end was, it now also seems dated and distasteful, from a period that regarded women as weak and the truth as vulgar. She died on 6 September 1959 soon after completing her very last film, the comedy “Once More, with Feeling!” (1960), starring opposite Yul Brynner.

She was buried in St John's churchyard, Church Row, Hampstead, London. The Withernsea lighthouse, which her maternal grandfather, a fisherman, had helped construct, is now home to the Kay Kendall Memorial Museum and has many items associated with her life and times. 

 On 6 September 2014 a blue plaque commemorating Kay Kendall was erected by The Music Hall Guild of Great Britain and America and unveiled at her former home in Withernsea to mark the 55th anniversary of her death.

Kendall's premature death at the age of 32 robbed the cinema of a uniquely gifted comedienne. Elegant, witty, and zany, she was a sophisticated clown; the studios did not know what to do with her, but in her few films of quality she made an indelible impression.

"As they say about crime victims, Kay Kendall was in the wrong place at the wrong time", wrote Rhoda Koenig, a critic, in The Independent in 2006. "In her case, the crime was a waste of talent. One of the most delightful of British actresses, few of her films gave her a chance to shine. A natural screwball heroine, Kendall was born too late for the 1930s comedies in which she would have been the equal of the scatty but scintillating Carole Lombard or Claudette Colbert, and too soon for the naughtiness and absurdity of the 1960s. Instead, she made most of her films for the cheap and cheerless Rank organisation, and became famous only to arrive in Hollywood in time for the prudish, leaden Fifties. Kendall was beautiful and funny. She was a true comedienne, unafraid to compromise her ladylike appearance with pratfalls, pop eyes and comic drunk scenes. Kendall could get away with such antics without looking vulgar.”

Kendall’s screen persona was that of the elegant eccentric, with purring voice and her delicate, turned-up nose,  an aristocratic swoop,which was actually the result of plastic surgery after a car crash. 

As she told Dirk Bogarde, the surgeon had only two noses in his repertoire, "this one and the other one." The one she chose, Kendall explained, made it difficult to photograph her in profile.

The Kay Kendall Leukaemia fund still supports scientific research into leukaemia and her life is explored further in the biographical book The Brief, Madcap Life Of Kay Kendall (2002) by Eve Golden and her sister, Kim Elizabeth Kendall.

Filmography

• Fiddlers Three (1943)
• Champagne Charlie (1944)
• Dreaming (1945)
• Waltz Time (1945)
• Caesar and Cleopatra (1945)
• London Town (1946)
• Dance Hall (1950)
• Night and the City (1950)
• Happy Go Lovely (1951)
• Lady Godiva Rides Again (1951)
• Wings of Danger (1952)
• Curtain Up (1952)
• It Started in Paradise (1952)
• Mantrap (1953)
• Genevieve (1953)
• Street of Shadows (1953)
• Meet Mr. Lucifer (1953)
• The Square Ring (1953)
• Doctor in the House (1954)
• Fast and Loose (1954)
• The Adventures of Quentin Durward (1955)
• Abdulla the Great (1955)
• Simon and Laura (1955)
• The Constant Husband (1955)
• Les Girls (1957)
• The Reluctant Debutante (1958)
• Once More, with Feeling! (1960)