Cross-Dressing John Kenley Is A Life Ignored

RIP John Kenley. Anorak’s Man In LA remembers the cross-dressing, hermaphroditic theatre star being ignored by the big media:

ADD the Los Angeles Times to the mainstream media outlets that leave the most colorful part of a great person’s life out of the story. The LA Times is a couple of days behind the New York Times in reporting the death at 103 of John Kenley, the Ohio summer stock theatre impresario known for casting television and movie stars including Burt Reynolds, Mae West, William Shatner and Joe Namath in popular plays and musicals.

We were doing a bit of quick research Sunday morning to see if he’d brought The Hudson Brothers to Ohio, when we discovered that the famously-closeted Merv Griffin had outed the beloved Mr. Kenley as an alleged “registered” hermaphrodite, and that the producer lived half the year in Florida as “Joan”.

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Anorak

Posted: 4th, November 2009 | In: Celebrities | Comment