Summer Theater producer John Kenley dies at 103

CLEVELAND - John Kenley, a theatrical producer who has a legendary race of the summer in Ohio resulted in the early 1950s that drew many stars of Broadway and Hollywood, has died, a family friend said Thursday. He was 103rd Kenley died 23rd October at the Cleveland Clinic from complications from pneumonia, said Anita Dloniak, a friend and spokesman. Kenley produced hundreds of plays and musicals. His players Kenley, a circuit of shares in Dayton, Ohio, began in 1957, the stars like Arthur Godfrey, Ethel Merman, Mae West, Burt Reynolds, Billy Crystal, William Shatner and Robert Goulet. Later he opened another Ohio-based theater in Warren, Columbus and Akron before serving in the Playhouse Square Center in downtown Cleveland in 1984. Kenley began acting in New York in 1920 and served as assistant to the legendary producer Lee Shubert. He became a producer of summer theater in 1940 in Deer Lake, Pennsylvania, and has worked in other cities of the East, including Washington, DC In 1950 ran an interview with the Washington Post, "says Kenley Summer Theater, he in Lakewood Park, in Pennsylvania, where theater-goers, miners, has seen many of them and their families, stars like Gloria Swanson and Lizabeth Scott. Were "I reckon only $ 1.50, which makes some of the other managers angry," he said. "I prefer to have full houses every night, will put as many empty seats." From the years 1970 and 1980 he was with the TV stars such as Pam Dawber of Mork from Ork, who played Eliza Doollittle in "My Fair Lady" Kenley for a summer in Ohio. But the older stars were still active. In an interview with the Chicago Tribune in 1977, he found Debra Paget, a star of the 1950s, reminiscent in a production for him from the samples, all alone, when he returned to the theater late at night to get something . 'These stars hard work, "he said." You are an amazing ilk. … There was a reason why she stars in the first place. "