Ezra Kendall

Ezra Freemont Kendall (February 15, 1861 – January 23, 1910) was an American actor, comedian, playwright, and author whose stage work centered on portrayals of New England Yankee characters. Born on a farm near Centerville, New York, he was the son of Ezra W. and Eliza R. (née Pratt) Kendall. His father enlisted as a sergeant with Company D, 64th Infantry Regiment, New York in the September following Kendall's birth, advanced to the rank of lieutenant, and was killed at the Battle of Seven Pines.

Kendall left school at fourteen to work as a printer's assistant. At seventeen he moved to New York City, where he took positions as a cub reporter at several newspapers and became the youngest member of the New York Press Club. By the time he was nineteen or twenty, he had joined a theatre company performing walk-on roles in exchange for room and board, and he subsequently took over the company's property man duties at four dollars a week. His professional stage debut came when he played an English butler in Elliott Barnes' melodrama Only a Farmer's Daughter. He went on to tour in a succession of productions, among them Lillian Cleves' Grump, Barnes' Dr. Clyde, the Wallack and Hinds' Criterion Comedy Company, and Edward Byron's Summer Boarders.

Around 1882, Kendall organized a minstrel company with Horace Johnson, though the venture was short-lived, and a subsequent comedy partnership with Alfred Klein dissolved after a single week. He starred in the original production of Muggs' Landing and in early 1884 achieved a run with Wanted, a Partner that lasted through late spring. That summer he worked as an advance agent for a minstrel show before joining William A. Mestayer's company for the 1884–1885 season in A Box of Matches. On September 19, 1884, Kendall opened in We, Us & Company, a musical farce of his own authorship that brought him to national attention. Following a successful yearlong tour, he sold the rights to Mestayer and formed his own company. Among his most successful productions of the late 1880s and early 1890s was A Pair of Kids, which toured for at least six seasons.

Around 1894, Kendall wrote and toured in The Substitute alongside comedian Arthur Dunn and soubrette Jennie Dunn. He also appeared in David Henderson's extravaganza Ali Baba during its run of one hundred nights at the Chicago Opera House. Beginning in 1896, Kendall shifted to the vaudeville circuit as a monologist, where he was reported to be among the highest-paid performers of that type in the country. He returned to the legitimate stage in 1902 with The Vinegar Buyer, his own play and the most successful work of the final decade of his career. The production brought him to Broadway in 1903. The Vinegar Buyer was also published as a book. Kendall subsequently appeared in Edward E. Kidder's Weather-beaten Benson and in road adaptations of George Ade's Bad Samaritan and Land of Dollars.

In addition to his stage work, Kendall authored several humorous books, all written in a style that reflected the rhythm and comic timing of vaudeville performance and accompanied by line drawings. The titles included Spots of Wit and Humor (1899), Good Gravy (1901), Tell It to Me (1903), Hot Ashes (1908), and Top Soil (1909). The first three volumes were later collected and published in hardcover by the Cleveland News Company. The text of these books was reproduced from handwriting, and the stories frequently employed wordplay.

In mid-December 1909, Kendall suffered a stroke while touring in Los Angeles with The Vinegar Buyer, forcing him to cancel the remainder of his tour dates and return to his home in Cleveland, Ohio. He subsequently traveled to Indiana to stay at the Martinsville Mineral Springs Hotel, also known as the Martinsville Sanitarium, seeking relief through mineral baths. He died there a few days after his arrival on January 23, 1910. Kendall was survived by his wife of twenty-two years, Jennie Dunn, and six children. Following his death, his former management firm, Liebler and Co., filed suit against his widow seeking to recover losses incurred when Kendall's illness caused him to abandon his tour.