The Timeless Theater
  • Home
  • Action
    • 1920 Action
    • 1930 Action
    • 1940 Action
    • 1950 Action
    • 1960 Action
  • Comedy
    • 1920 Comedy
    • 1930 Comedy
    • 1940 Comedy
    • 1950 Comedy
    • 1960 Comedy
  • Drama
    • 1920 Drama
    • 1930 Drama
    • 1940 Drama
    • 1950 Drama
    • 1960 Drama
  • Horror-SciFi
    • 1920 Horror-Scifi
    • 1930 Horror-Scifi
    • 1940 Horror-Scifi
    • 1950 Horror-Scifi
    • 1960 Horror-Scifi
  • Suspense
    • 1920 Suspense
    • 1930 Suspense
    • 1940 Suspense
    • 1950 Suspense
    • 1960 Suspense
  • The Stars
    • The Stars A - E
    • The Stars F - J
    • The Stars K - O
    • The Stars P - R
    • The Stars S - Z
  • Title Index
  • Home
  • Action
    • 1920 Action
    • 1930 Action
    • 1940 Action
    • 1950 Action
    • 1960 Action
  • Comedy
    • 1920 Comedy
    • 1930 Comedy
    • 1940 Comedy
    • 1950 Comedy
    • 1960 Comedy
  • Drama
    • 1920 Drama
    • 1930 Drama
    • 1940 Drama
    • 1950 Drama
    • 1960 Drama
  • Horror-SciFi
    • 1920 Horror-Scifi
    • 1930 Horror-Scifi
    • 1940 Horror-Scifi
    • 1950 Horror-Scifi
    • 1960 Horror-Scifi
  • Suspense
    • 1920 Suspense
    • 1930 Suspense
    • 1940 Suspense
    • 1950 Suspense
    • 1960 Suspense
  • The Stars
    • The Stars A - E
    • The Stars F - J
    • The Stars K - O
    • The Stars P - R
    • The Stars S - Z
  • Title Index

TRIVIA:


He made his film debut in 1940's CITY OF CONQUEST with James Cagney and Ann Sheridan. | Four of Kennedy's five Oscar-nominated performances were directed by Mark Robson: Champion (1949), Bright Victory (1951), Trial (1955) and Peyton Place (1957). His fifth nod, for Some Came Running (1958), was directed by Vincente Minnelli. | Edmond O'Brien was originally cast as Jackson Bentley in Lawrence of Arabia (1962). After O'Brien filmed several scenes, he suffered a heart attack and had to be replaced. Kennedy was recommended to director David Lean by Anthony Quinn, whom Kennedy had replaced on Broadway in the role of King Henry II in the play "Beckett" (1960). | His character Jackson Bentley, newspaper man and filmmaker, in Lawrence of Arabia (1962) is a fictionalized version of real life "discoverer" of T.E. Lawrence, Lowell Thomas. | Had starred in three Oscar Best Picture nominees: Peyton Place (1957), Elmer Gantry (1960) and Lawrence of Arabia (1962). Lawrence of Arabia won. | He was awarded 2 Stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Motion Pictures at 6681 Hollywood Boulevard; and for Television at 1620 Vine Street in Hollywood, California.

AVAILABLE FILMS:


AIR FORCE (1943)
BEND OF THE RIVER (1952)
BOOMERANG! (1947)
CHAMPION (1949)
CHEYENNE (1947)
CITY FOR CONQUEST (1940)
CRASHOUT (1955)
DESPERATE JOURNEY (1942)
HIGH SIERRA (1941)
HIGHWAY WEST (1941)
KNOCKOUT (1941)
LUSTY MEN, THE (1952)
MAN FROM LARAMIE, THE (1955)
NEVADA SMITH (1966)
RANCHO NOTORIOUS (1952)
RED MOUNTAIN (1951)
STRANGE ALIBI (1941)
TOO LATE FOR TEARS (1949)
TRIAL (1955)
WINDOW, THE (1949)

VIDEO TRIBUTE:


Arthur Kennedy


Arthur Kennedy
Active - 1918 - 1989  |   Born - Feb 17, 1914 in Worcester, MA  |   Died - Jan 5, 1990 in Branford, CT  |   Genres - Drama, Crime, Western, Adventure, Thriller  | Height: 5’ 10”

Arthur Kennedy, one of the premier character actors in American film from the late 1940s through the early 1960s, achieved fame in the role of Biff in Elia Kazan's historic production of Arthur Miller's Pultizer-Prize winning play "Death of a Salesman." Although he was not selected to recreate the role on screen, he won one Best Actor and four Best Supporting Academy Award nominations between 1949 and 1959 and ranked as one of Hollywood's finest players.

Born John Arthur Kennedy to a dentist and his wife on February 17, 1914 in Worcester, Massachusetts. As a young man, known as "Johnny" to his friends, studied drama at the Carnegie Institute of Technology. By the time he was 20 years old, he was involved in local theatrical groups. Kennedy's first professional gig was was with the Globe Theatre Company, which toured the Midwest offering abbreviated versions of Shakespearian plays. Shakesperian star Maurice Evans hired Kennedy for his company, with which he appeared in the Broadway production of "Richard II" in 1937. While performing in Evans' repertory company, Kennedy also worked in the Federal Theatre project.

Arthur Kennedy made his Broadway debut in "Everywhere I Roam" in 1938, the same year that he married Mary Cheffrey, who would remain his wife until her death in 1975. He also appeared on Broadway in "Life and Death of an American" in 1939 and in "An International Incident" in 1940 at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, in support of the great American actress the theater had been named after.

Kennedy and his wife moved west to Los Angeles, California in 1938, and it was while acting on the stage in L.A. that he was discovered by fellow actor James Cagney, who cast him as his brother in the film City for Conquest (1940). The role brought with it a contract with Warner Bros., and the studio put him in supporting roles in some prestigious movies, including High Sierra (1941), the film that made Humphrey Bogart a star, They Died with Their Boots On (1941) with Errol Flynn, and Howard Hawks's Air Force (1943) alongside future Best Supporting Actor Oscar winner Gig Young and the great John Garfield. His career was interrupted by military service in World War Two.

After the war, Kennedy went back to the Broadway stage, where he gained a reputation as an actor's actor, appearing in Arthur Miller's 1947 Tony Award-winning play "All My Sons," which was directed by Kazan. He played John Proctor in the original production of Miller's reflection on McCarthyism, "The Crucible" - which Kazan, an informer who prostrated himself before the forces of McCarthyism, refused to direct - and also appeared in Miller's last Broadway triumph, "The Price."

When Kennedy returned to film work, he quickly distinguished himself as one of the best and most talented of supporting actors & character leads, appearing in such major films as Boomerang! (1947), Champion (1949) (for which he received his first Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actor) and The Glass Menagerie (1950), playing Tom in a mediocre adaptation of Tennessee Williams's classic play. Kennedy won his first and only Best Actor nomination for Bright Victory (1951), playing a blinded vet, a role for which he won the New York Film Critics Circle award over such competition as Marlon Brando and Humphrey Bogart. Other films included Fritz Lang's 'Rancho Notorious (1951)', Anthony Mann's Bend of the River (1952), William Wyler's The Desperate Hours (1955), Richard Brooks' Elmer Gantry (1960), David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia (1962), and John Ford's Cheyenne Autumn (1964).

In 1956, Kennedy won another Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for his role in Trial (1955), plus two more Supporting nods in 1958 and 1959 for his appearances in the screen adaptations of Grace Metalious's Peyton Place (1957), and James Jones Some Came Running (1958).

Kennedy returned to Broadway frequently in the 1950s, and headlined the 1952 play "See the Jaguar", a flop best remembered for giving a young actor named James Dean one of his first important parts. A decade later, Kennedy replaced his good friend Anthony Quinn in the Broadway production of "Becket", alternating the roles of Becket and Henry II with Laurence Olivier, who was quite fond of working with him. In the 1960s, the prestigious movie parts dried up as he matured, but he continued working in movies and on TV until he retired in the mid-1980s.

He moved out of Los Angeles to live with family members in Connecticut. In the last years of his life, he was afflicted with thyroid cancer and eye disease. He died of a brain tumor at 75, survived by his two children by his wife Mary, Terence and actress Laurie Kennedy. He is buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in Lequille, Nova Scotia, Canada.

- IMDb Mini Biography By: Jon C. Hopwood

[1985, about retiring] "I ask myself that frequently. It seems the theater has been on the downcline since the mid-fifties. The pace of television shows is very unappealing to me. I will not live in Hollywood or New York anymore and if they don't see you around they just don't think of you for roles. I guess I'm retired, but if Tony Quinn [Anthony Quinn] told me that there was a hell of a part for me in a picture or play I'd probably do it. Because I'd believe him and I miss his company. I like to work with old friends and there are fewer and fewer of them left."

"[on Henry Hathaway] A walking encyclopedia of the business. Away from work, he was delightful, but on the set, a holy terror!"


- Arthur Kennedy
Explore the simpler time of yesteryear... 
A time when men and women were truly glamorous. A time when you could watch any movie with your children and not have to worry about gratuitous sex or violence – yet enjoy all the lustful inferences and edge-of-your-seat suspense.
Welcome to The Timeless Theater!

    Contact Us

    Don't be shy
    Your questions, comments or fond memories here
    Please leave your email address so I can respond back.
Submit
We're in the process of identifying which of our films are in the Public Domain, and offering these for sale on DVD.
​Please stay Tuned...!

Check out our new Film Noir Collection:

Coffee Mugs!
Phone Cases!
iPad Cases!

More coming soon!