Kenneth MacKenna

Kenneth MacKenna, born Leo Mielziner Jr. on August 19, 1899, in Canterbury, New Hampshire, was an American actor, film director, and story editor whose career spanned Broadway, Hollywood, and television. He died on January 15, 1962, in Santa Monica, California, at age 62, and was buried alongside his wife at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California.

MacKenna was the son of portrait artist Leo Mielziner and Ella Lane McKenna Friend. His brother was Jo Mielziner, who became a five-time Tony Award winner. Before entering the entertainment industry, MacKenna worked in bonds and stocks until producer William Brady discovered him and brought him into the cast of At 9:45. His Broadway debut followed in Opportunity in 1920, launching a stage career that extended from 1919 to 1959. Among his Broadway credits were The Sapphire Ring, Immodest Violet, The Endless Chain, and The Highest Tree. While based in New York, he also directed and produced plays for the Theater Guild.

MacKenna served in both World War I and World War II. Beginning in 1931, he directed films in Hollywood before returning to Broadway in the mid-1930s. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer subsequently hired him as a story editor in New York, and he later rose to department head at the studio in Hollywood. Dore Schary, head of production at MGM in the 1950s, described MacKenna as intelligent, well-educated, good-humored, and incorruptible, noting that the two shared a close friendship built on mutual trust. MacKenna returned to acting in the late 1950s on both stage and screen. One of his final film roles was the portrayal of fictional Judge Kenneth Norris in Judgment at Nuremberg, released less than a month before his death. He also appeared in a 1961 episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, playing Bishop Cannon in the episode titled "The Horseplayer."

MacKenna and his wife, actress Mary Philips, were co-investors in the original production of South Pacific. MacKenna first brought the source book to Richard Rodgers, proposing it as the basis for a stage musical. Mary Martin, who starred in that production, later presented the MacKennas with an embroidered signature scarf bearing the signatures of the cast as a gesture of thanks. MacKenna and Philips had a long personal history before their marriage; in September 1924, both had appeared on Broadway in Nerves alongside Humphrey Bogart, and the three remained lifelong friends. Philips was subsequently married to Bogart from 1928 to 1938. MacKenna had previously been married to actress Kay Francis, a union that lasted from January 17, 1931, until their divorce in February 1934. He married Philips in August 1938, and the two remained together until his death from cancer. MacKenna's professional success at MGM enabled him to support his brother Jo's career and contribute broadly to the theatre, a commitment that continued even after his death. Research into his work as a producer and studio director is available through the Mielziner papers at the New York Public Library and through the MGM library.