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People of Note - Obituaries
GenealogyBuff.com - Kay Kendall
Posted By: GenealogyBuff.com
Date: Sunday, 4 September 2016, at 8:53 a.m.
System Mechanic - Clean, repair, protect, and speed up your PC!Kay Kendall
May 26, 1926 - September 06, 1959
Kay Justine Kendall McCarthy was born on May 26, 1926, in Withernsea, Yorkshire, England. Kendall was born into a theatrical environment, her grandmother Marie had been a music hall great and other members of her family were also performers. Kay was dancing in the chorus at the Palladium by the time she was 12. She and her sister Kim formed an act during WWII, and Kendall began appearing in film and television productions in the late 1940s. She got a few bit parts and then got a big role in a major event movie, London Town. Unfortunately this expensive film was one of the biggest flops in British cinema history. After this it was back to rep and bit parts for a few years. She found stardom in 1953 with her brilliant performance in the low-budget film, Genevieve, in which her character tussled with a huge dog named Suzy and displayed unexpected talent as a trumpeter. She scored success after success with her light comic style in movies such as Doctor in the House, The Reluctant Debutante, and the Gene Kelly musical Les Girls. In 1954 she fell in love with her married Constant Husband co-star Rex Harrison and accompanied him to New York, where he was starring on Broadway in My Fair Lady. It was there that Kendall was diagnosed with myelocytic leukemia. In 1957, Harrison then divorced his wife and married Kendall. He agreed with their doctor that she was never to know of her diagnosis, and for the next two years the couple lived a hectic, glamorous life together as Kendall’s health failed. She died in London the London Clinic in 1959, shortly after completing the filming of Once More with Feeling!, with her husband by her side. She was of 32 and at the height of her fame.
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