Merna Kennedy

Merna Kennedy (born Maude Kahler; September 7, 1908 – December 20, 1944) was an American actress of the late silent era and the transitional period into talkies.

Career She was born in Kankakee, one of two children to Maud (née Reed) and John Kahler, a German-American butcher turned chiropractor. After her parents separated, her mother moved the family to California, where she married a grocer two years later, and changed their name to Kennedy. At the outbreak of World War I, their mother prepped seven-year-old Merna and brother Melvin (known as Merle) to tour as a dancing and singing sibling act on the Orpheum and Pantages theater circuits of vaudeville, where she became acquainted with Lita Grey. She had red hair and muscular legs (due to being a dancer,) the latter of which helped her gain the role of the circus bareback rider.

Kennedy continued acting after The Circus, starring in early sound films, but retired in 1934 when she married choreographer/director Busby Berkeley on February 10, 1934 at Hollywood United Methodist Church. Their marriage broke up by 1936.

Death Kennedy died at age 36 of a heart attack on December 20, 1944, four days after her marriage to Master Sergeant Forrest Brayton. She is buried at Inglewood Park Cemetery, Inglewood, California.

Filmography