Paul Kelly

Paul Michael Kelly (August 9, 1899 - November 6, 1956) was an American stage, film, and television actor. His career survived a manslaughter conviction, tied to an affair, that caused him to spend time in prison in the late 1920s.

Career

Kelly alternated between stage and screen as an actor. He was a handsome and popular male lead or costar in Broadway plays from the late 1910s and throughout the 1920s. Kelly made his talking film debut in 1933's Broadway Through a Keyhole. In the course of his career, and relatively short life, it has been estimated that Kelly worked on stage, screen, and television in over four hundred roles.

In 1948, Kelly won a Best Actor Tony Award for his role in Command Decision. Clark Gable later played the same role in the film version of the play. Kelly shared the award with Henry Fonda for Mister Roberts and Basil Rathbone for The Heiress.

Personal life

Kelly and Mackaye married in 1931, shortly after the expiration on Kelly's parole condition prohibiting him from marrying. They performed on Broadway, and then returned to California, where Mackaye's daughter Valerie Raymond was apparently adopted by Kelly and became known as Mimi Kelly. Mimi would later have her own modest Broadway career.

Dorothy Mackaye's account of her experiences, Women in Prison, became a film, Ladies They Talk About (1933), with Barbara Stanwyck, and was remade as Lady Gangster in 1942.

Mackaye died from a 1940 auto crash, when her car swerved and rolled into a ditch. She walked home, and, seeking to assuage Kelly's concerns, insisted that she was not seriously hurt. However, she had suffered internal injuries, and died within hours.

Kelly died of a heart attack at 57 on November 6, 1956, in Beverly Hills, California.