Jerome Kilty

Jerome Timothy Kilty (June 24, 1922 – September 6, 2012) was an American actor and playwright who worked extensively in theater both in the United States and abroad. Born in Baltimore, Maryland, of Irish descent on his father's side, he was raised on the Pala Indian Reservation in San Diego County, California. On May 11, 1956, he married actress Cavada Humphrey, who was born on June 17, 1919, and was three years his senior. Humphrey died on July 11, 2007, at the age of 88.

Kilty's Broadway career spanned from 1950 to 1989, during which he appeared as a performer and contributed as a book writer. His stage credits included the drama A Moon for the Misbegotten, as well as Dear Liar, Look Away, and Mastergate. In the early period of American television, he also acted in several programs, among them The United States Steel Hour, Kraft Television Theatre, The Alcoa Hour, Studio One, and Hallmark Hall of Fame.

Among his most recognized works as a playwright is Dear Liar: A Comedy of Letters, a play drawn from the correspondence between playwright George Bernard Shaw and actress Mrs. Patrick Campbell, in which two actors perform the letters the pair exchanged. The production was staged in Chicago in 1957 before its New York opening on March 17, 1960, featuring Katherine Cornell and Brian Aherne. A London staging followed in 1963, and in 1964 Kilty and Humphrey embarked on a world tour performing the piece. The play was later adapted for the screen in 1981 by director Gordon Rigsby, with Jane Alexander portraying Mrs. Patrick Campbell and Edward Herrmann as George Bernard Shaw. A French-language adaptation, titled Cher menteur, was written by Jean Cocteau, and a film version directed by Alexandre Tarta starred Edwige Feuillère and Jean Marais in the lead roles.

Kilty wrote several other notable plays. Dear Love was a love story built around the poems and letters of Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. The Ides of March examined events surrounding the end of the Roman Empire. The Little Black Book centered on a lawyer who falls in love with a woman listed as entry number 134 in his little black book. Look Away, based on the book Mary Todd Lincoln by Justin and Linda Levitt, was set in an insane asylum and explored the life of its title character. Starring Geraldine Page, the production closed after 24 previews and a single performance, though Maya Angelou received a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Play for her work in it.

Beyond Dear Liar, Kilty and Humphrey were also the first duo to tour internationally with Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Their South African performances of that production became the subject of controversy. At the insistence of playwright Edward Albee, the play was to be presented exclusively before integrated audiences. After opening in Port Elizabeth and moving to Durban, where one critic described it as "dirt-laden debris," the production drew both favorable and unfavorable responses. In Johannesburg, press reception was more encouraging, but public letters of protest prompted Jan de Klerk, then South Africa's Minister of the Interior, to suspend performances while the official Board of Censors reviewed whether the play was contrary to public interest or good morals, effectively banning it. Kilty died on September 6, 2012.