Leueen MacGrath

Leueen MacGrath (3 July 1914 – 27 March 1992) was an English actress, playwright, and composer whose Broadway career spanned from 1948 to 1960. Born in London, England, she trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art before embarking on a career that would take her from British film and stage work to the heart of American theater.

MacGrath's screen career began with a small part in the 1936 British film Whom the Gods Love, a biographical picture about Mozart and his wife Constanze. Additional film and television work in Britain followed, including appearances in Pygmalion, All Hands, Meet Maxwell Archer, and The Saint's Vacation. Her Broadway debut came in 1948 with Edward, My Son, a role she had originated in the London production and subsequently reprised in the film adaptation the following year.

Her arrival on Broadway coincided with the beginning of her relationship with playwright and director George S. Kaufman, whom she married on 26 May 1949 at his home in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Kaufman directed her in Jean Giraudoux's The Enchanted at the Lyceum Theatre, a production that closed after 45 performances. MacGrath then turned to playwriting, collaborating with Kaufman and Heywood Hale Broun on The Small Hours in 1951, which ran for 20 performances. The following year she co-wrote and starred in Fancy Meeting You Again, a play about reincarnation that featured a young Walter Matthau and closed after only 8 performances. The collaboration between MacGrath and Kaufman reached its greatest commercial success in 1955 with Silk Stockings, the Cole Porter musical for which they co-wrote the book alongside Abe Burrows. She also appeared in The Love of Four Colonels during her Broadway years.

Having settled in the United States after her marriage, MacGrath became a familiar presence in American television, appearing in anthology series including The Philco Television Playhouse, Studio One, Lux Video Theatre, The United States Steel Hour, The Alcoa Hour, and Hallmark Hall of Fame. She and Kaufman divorced in 1957, after which she returned to the United Kingdom. In 1958 she traveled back to New York to assist Kaufman following his second stroke, though she declined to remarry him, and she subsequently continued her career in the United States.

MacGrath was married five times in total. Her husbands, in addition to Kaufman, were Christopher Burn, Desmond Davis, Stephen Goodyear, and Stephen Quinto. She died on 27 March 1992 from complications of a stroke at her home in London at the age of 77, survived by a sister and a stepdaughter.