FAMILY'S PLIGHT

Ellesmere Guardian, Volume LVI, Issue 89, 22 November 1935, Page 5

FAMILY'S PLIGHT

DAME MADGE KENDALL'S

CHILDREN.

(From the Guardian's Special Corres

pondent—By Air Mail)

LONDON, October 12

The world has been shocked to find that Dame Madge Kendal was not the perfect wife and mother that three generations of playgoers had supposed. Her family was subject to neglect and scorn. They are almost penniless.

It is now revealed that the eldest child of the marriage, Dorrington Grimston, who went to Harrow and Cambridge, now lives partly crippled by a fall, in Gibraltar. The second child, Margaret, died a good many years ago. Ethel, who in time became Mrs Grimston Leonard, was the third child. She is how a woman of 60, walking on crutches, and eking out an existence on the Continent by teaching English. She has a pittance of about £75 a year. Ethel Grimston had talent for the stage and wanted to follow in her mother's theatrical footsteps. She got an engagement with the famous actor, Nat Goodwin. But her mother would have none of it, and Goodwin cancelled the contract on the ground that "the Kendals are too powerful to offend in any way." Harold was the fourth child. He died in absolute poverty. It is declared that his mother was aware of his state, but refused to help him. He was a musician and, at one time, had a good position in a London music firm. His widow is living in Farnham, Surrey. Finally, there was Dorothy, the youngest child. She is now living widowed in South Africa, on, so she says, £3 a month. Two of her children were put into the Actors' Orphanage—where they still are.