Doris Kenyon

Doris Margaret Kenyon was born on September 5, 1897, in Syracuse, New York, where her family resided at 1805 Harrison Street. Her father, Dr. James B. Kenyon, served as a Methodist Episcopal Church minister at University Church. She studied at Packer College Institute and later at Columbia University, and sang in the choirs of Grace Presbyterian and Bushwick Methodist Churches in Brooklyn. Her brother, Raymond T. Kenyon, worked as a dentist and served as a New York assemblyman. Kenyon went on to build a career spanning Broadway, film, television, and concert performance before her death on September 1, 1979, in Beverly Hills, California, from cardiac arrest.

Broadway theatrical scouts took notice of Kenyon's voice and recruited her to the stage. Her first Broadway appearance came in 1915, when she performed as a chorus girl in the Victor Herbert operetta The Princess Pat. Her stage career continued through 1924 and included credits in The Gift, The White Villa, The Girl in the Limousine, and The Ladder.

Kenyon's film work began in 1915 with The Rack, produced by World Film Company in Fort Lee, New Jersey. Among her most recognized early films was Monsieur Beaucaire (1924), in which she appeared opposite Rudolph Valentino. The following year, she and her first husband, actor Milton Sills, co-starred in The Unguarded Hour for First National Pictures. Because Kenyon could not swim, Laura Wood — a competitive swimmer and wife of First National cinematographer Gaylord Wood — doubled for her in the film's swimming scenes. Kenyon's transition to sound film came with The Home Towners (1928), and she also starred in Interference (1928), Paramount Pictures' first talking film. She appeared alongside George Arliss in both Alexander Hamilton (1931) and Voltaire (1933), and joined John Barrymore in Counsellor at Law (1933). Her film career concluded with a cameo in The Man in the Iron Mask (1939). In the autumn of 1935, she appeared with Ramon Novarro in the play A Royal Miscarriage in London.

Kenyon's singing career developed after a concert artist manager heard her perform informally for friends in New York and subsequently arranged a tour for her. A soprano, she performed in Detroit as part of the Town Hall Series and in Phoenix as part of the All-Star Artists Series. Singing became a particular source of personal expression following the death of her first husband. Her 1933 "Lyrical Silhouettes" tour incorporated characterizations delivered in more than half a dozen foreign languages and dialects, accompanied by a variety of costumes across the program's segments. In broadcasting, Kenyon played Ann Cooper in the NBC soap opera Crossroads during the 1940s, and extended her acting work into television in the 1950s with appearances in The Secret Storm (1954), Schlitz Playhouse of Stars, and 77 Sunset Strip.

Kenyon married four times. She wed actor Milton Sills on October 12, 1926, and the couple had one son, Kenyon Clarence Sills, born in 1927. Sills died in 1930, leaving Kenyon a widow. In 1933 she married New York real estate broker Arthur Hopkins; the two divorced the following year, citing incompatibility. Her third marriage, in 1938, was to Albert D. Lasker, owner of the advertising agency Lord & Thomas; that marriage also ended in divorce, in 1939. Her fourth and final husband was musician Bronislaw Mlynarski, whom she married in 1947. Mlynarski was the son of composer Emil Młynarski and the brother-in-law of pianist Arthur Rubinstein.

In 1922, a newborn girl named Doris Kappelhoff was named after Kenyon; that child later became known as singer and actress Doris Day. Years afterward, Day purchased a home in Beverly Hills located a few houses from Kenyon's residence on the same street.