Kennedy, Margaret (1896–1967)

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Kennedy, Margaret (1896–1967)

British novelist, playwright, and critic. Born Margaret Moore Kennedy in London, England, on April 23, 1896; died in Adderbury, Oxfordshire, England, on July 31, 1967; eldest of four children of Charles Moore Kennedy (a barrister) and Elinor (Marwood) Kennedy; attended Cheltenham Ladies' College; received honors degree from Somerville College, Oxford, 1919; married David Davies (a barrister and county court judge), in 1925; children: one son, and two daughters, including Julia Birley (a novelist).

Selected writings—novels:

The Ladies of Lyndon (1923); The Constant Nymph (1924); The Game and the Candle (1926); Red Sky at Morning (1927, not to be confused with the 1971 movie of the same name); The Fool of the Family (1930); The Feast (1950); Lucy Carmichael (1951); Troy Chimneys (1953); The Oracles (1955).

Plays:

(with Basil Dean) The Constant Nymph (adapted from her novel, 1926); Escape Me Never! (1933); (with Gregory Ratoff) Autumn (1937).

Nonfiction:

A Century of Revolution (1922); The Mechanized Muse (1942); The Outlaws on Parnassus (1958); (autobiography) Where Stands a Winged Sentry.

Margaret Kennedy was born in London, England, in 1896, the daughter of Charles Moore Kennedy, a barrister, and Elinor Mar-wood Kennedy . Margaret began her creative life before she could read or write, composing a "play," which was frequently performed by cousins and playmates. By the time she entered Somerville College, at Oxford, she had written five novels and three plays and had destroyed them all. As it turned out, her first published book was neither a play nor a novel, but a historical study on the French Revolution, A Century of Revolution (1922). Her first novel, The Ladies of Lyndon, was published in 1923. Her second book The Constant Nymph, loosely based on a bohemian circle that surrounded the painter Augustus John, was a huge success in 1924. In 1926, she collaborated with Basil Dean on a stage dramatization of The Constant Nymph that starred Noel Coward (and later John Gielgud). There were four film versions, including the 1933 production by Gaumont-Fox which starred Tess Sanger and Brian Aherne, with screenplay by Kennedy and Basil Dean, and a 1943 Warner Bros. remake, which starred Joan Fontaine , Charles Boyer, Alexis Smith , and Dame May Whitty , with screenplay by Katheryn Scola .

Kennedy's 1933 stage play Escape Me Never, starring Elisabeth Bergner , also enjoyed enormous success. Filmed in England in 1935, it again starred Bergner and Hugh Sinclair, while the 1947 Warner Bros. remake starred Ida Lupino , Errol Flynn, and Eleanor Parker (the second version was based on both the novel The Fool of the Family and the play Escape Me Never).

Unconventionality versus respectability was a recurring theme in Kennedy's work, as was the deterioration of family relationships. Her books were popular book club selections in both England and the United States, and the novel Troy Chimneys (1953) won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. In addition to novels and plays, Kennedy produced several nonfiction works, including The Outlaws on Parnassus (1958), on the art of the novel, and The Mechanized Muse (1942), about screen-writing.

Kennedy was married to a barrister David Davies and had three children; her daughter Julia Birley is also a novelist. Although Kennedy suffered from Bell's palsy from 1939, she continued to write, producing much of her work from a desk in her bedroom. She also produced an autobiography, Where Stands a Winged Sentry. Margaret Kennedy died on July 31, 1967.