She often played The Maid in motion pictures, & she was forced to take work as an actual maid when Hollywood was not able to deal with her loud mouth, her drinking & her openness about being, in her own words: “a big dyke”.
Patsy Kelly was famous for being a screwball, spunky, straight-shooter of film & stage. She is remembered for her comic work in movies, her Broadway credits go back to the 1920s.
Sarah Veronica Rose Kelly was born in Brooklyn 101 years ago today. She was the daughter of Irish immigrants. In 1927, she made her Broadway debut in the vaudeville musical Harry Delmar’s Revels followed by Three Cheers (1928), Earl Carroll’s Sketch Book (1929) & Earl Carroll’s Vanities (1930).
In The Wonder Bar (1931), a play set in Parisian night club, Kelly played Electra Pivonka, a role that required her to sing 2 songs. in 1932 she had several musical numbers in the revue- Flying Colors. She would not return to Broadway for 40 years.
Kelly appeared in films now largely forgotten or lost, often playing the roles of the maid or the nurse. Among her early films: Air Fright (1933), The Countess of Monte Cristo (1934),The Misses Stooge (1935), Pigskin Parade (1936), Wake Up & Live (1937), The Cowboy & the Lady (1938), The Gorilla (1939), Topper Returns (1941).
Kelly was an out & proud lesbian at a time that it was nearly unthinkable, & her outspokenness hurt her career in the 1940s. Her off-screen boozing & public proclamations that she was a lesbian led to the end of her career during Hollywood's golden age. By 1943, she could only get small roles in films at PRC, the most poverty-stricken of all Poverty Row studios.
Her on again/off again lover- Tallulah Bankhead hired her as a personal assistant/housekeeper. Kelly worked as a domestic for Bankhead & others until she found work in TV starting in the1950s. She was a frequent guest on everything from The Love Boat, The Man From U.N.C.L.E, The Wild, Wild West & The Dick Van Dyke Show. The movies discovered her again, with roles in: Please Don’t Eat the Daisies (1960), The Naked Kiss (1964), The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini (1966), Freaky Friday (1976) & The North Avenue Irregulars (1979). I especially love her work in 1968’s Rosemary’s Baby.
But her greatest successes came when she returned to Broadway, First in 1971 in the revival of the musical No, No, Nanette. Kelly played Pauline, the maid, & wowed audiences, me included, with her sharp delivery & first rate tap dancing. I liked Kelly & the show so much, I saw it on Broadway & in LA in 1972. Clive Barnes, the NY Times theatre critic at the time: “Kelly, a formidable lady who specializes in maids who have not only given notice but also taken notice, sucks up every scene she is in with the impressive suction of the vacuum cleaner she herself wields with such masterly expertise.”
She won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical.
Kelly followed her hit performance in No, No, Nanette with another star turn in the 1973 Broadway revival of Irene, playing Mrs. O’Dare, the spirited mother of the title character, played by Debbie Reynolds. Kelly earned a Tony nomination for her performance, & she can be heard on the cast recordings of both No, No, Nanette & Irene.
She entered the Motion Picture & Television Country House in 1981 & never left. She died there of cancer Sept. 24, 1981, at age 71.
The moral to Patsy Kelly’s tale? You can try & squash her spirits, but you can’t keep a delightful, dancin’ dyke dame down.
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