Molly Kerr

Molly Kerr, born Frances Keen on 28 May 1904 in Kensington, London, was an actress and theatre producer whose Broadway appearances spanned 1925 to 1926. She died on 31 May 1942 in Hove, three days after her thirty-eighth birthday. Kerr came from a theatrical family: her father, Frederick Grinham Keen, performed under the stage name Frederick Kerr, and both her elder siblings pursued stage careers, her brother Geoffrey under the name Geoffrey Kerr and her sister Lucy under the name Joyce Kerr. Kerr was educated at St Paul's and Granville House School for Girls in Eastbourne, and around 1920, at the age of sixteen, she enrolled in the drama school run by Lady Constance Benson at Pembroke Gardens, Kensington.

Her London stage debut came in 1921, when she played Chloe, the daughter of a judge, in Threads by Frank Stayton at the St James's Theatre, a production that ran for thirty performances beginning 23 August 1921. Her next role brought wider recognition: she played society girl Diana Oughterson in The Faithful Heart by Monckton Hoffe, which opened at the Comedy Theatre in November 1921 and ran for 185 performances. In 1922 she appeared in The Second Mrs Tanqueray by Arthur Pinero at the Playhouse Theatre, toured with the theatre troupe of Mrs Patrick Campbell, and played Lady Frances Carfax in The Return of Sherlock Holmes by J. E. Harold Terry at the Princes Theatre. That same year she appeared in her only film, a four-reel silent comedy titled Hide and Seek, produced by Martin Walker.

Kerr's most prominent stage role came in 1924, when she originated the part of Bunty Mainwaring opposite Noël Coward in The Vortex, first performed at the Everyman Theatre in Hampstead. The production ran for 244 performances across three additional London theatres between November 1924 and June 1925. In September 1925 the play transferred to the United States, opening after a tryout week in Washington, D.C., and running for 157 performances at Henry Miller's Theater in New York, where Kerr, Coward, and Lilian Braithwaite repeated their original roles until the production closed in January 1926. During her time in New York, Kerr modelled French fashions for American Vogue.

Following her return to England, Kerr played Brenda Fallon in Loose Ends by Dion Titheradge, a production that also transferred to the United States and opened at the Ritz Theatre in New York in November 1926. Also in 1926, she appeared in Escape by John Galsworthy as the Shingled Lady.

In 1927, at the age of twenty-three, Kerr co-produced The Intriguing Ladies with its author, Frank Stayton, at the Q Theatre. The Westminster Gazette identified her at that time as the youngest female producer of stage plays in history. She subsequently produced at the Arts Theatre the first play written by novelist Audrey Lucas, titled The Peaceful Thief, and acted in both productions. Theatre critic and impresario J. T. Grein wrote of her performance that he believed she was destined to be an emotional actress of much power.

From January 1928, Kerr appeared in 149 performances of Two White Arms, a farce by Harold Dearden at the Ambassadors Theatre, playing the wife Alison Liston. She then played Margaret Orme in Loyalties by Galsworthy in both Paris and London. In April 1929 she took a short lease on the Everyman Theatre in Hampstead, where she produced and directed one of four plays she had written herself, titled Requital, which ran for fifteen performances starring Moyna MacGill and Peggy Ashcroft. She continued producing into 1929.

In 1931 Kerr relocated to Balcombe, Sussex, with her parents, where she appeared in entertainments organized by the local Women's Institute, published a small book of poems, and bred caged birds. She died of a brain tumour in a nursing home in Hove on 31 May 1942 and was buried in the graveyard of St Mary's Church, Balcombe, in the plot beside her mother, who had died the previous year.