George Edward Kelly was born to John Henry and Mary Costello Kelly on 16 January 1887 in Schuylkill Falls, Pennsylvania. He was the next to youngest of ten children in a prominent Philadelphia family. His brother John was an Olympic rowing champion, chairman of the Democratic City Commission of Philadelphia, state secretary of revenue, and father of Grace Kelly, later Princess Grace of Monaco. Another brother was Walter B. Kelly, renowned as vaudeville's "Virginia Judge." George was educated privately by his parents, though he was awarded an honorary A.F.D. by LaSalle College in 1962. At age twenty-five Kelly entered the world of the theatre as an actor in a national touring production of The Virginian. Subsequently, he toured with Live Wires (1913) and The Common Law (1914). The road to his career as a playwright was paved by his entrance into vaudeville as an actor in Paul Armstrong's Woman Proposes (1915), for...