The Kinsey’s 60 Years of Show Business

PIX#1 The Show with a Million Friends

PIX#2 1888 and

PIX#3 1948

60 YEARS . . . . And Toby is still going strong

Who is Toby? He is, of course, the red-headed freckled face country lad who always outsmarts the city slicker. But maybe he is something more. Why do we laugh at Toby? Could it be because he does the things that we have always wanted to do; kick the villain in the seat of the pants . . . give the handsome leading man a hot-foot and kiss the leading lady. And maybe when we laugh at Toby we are, in reality, laughing at ourselves.

Above left, Toby and gal friend, Susie, circa 1900: Frank Miller and Beth Kinsey. Lower right: Otto Imig and Jo-Ann Colbert (today).

Toby Imig was born into a tent show family, The Pelham Players, who toured the state of Pennsylvania. One of his first roles as a child was Little Eva in Uncle Tom’s Cabin. He joined the Kinsey’s in 1937 as comedian. One of his prize possessions is his red wig originally worn by M.L. Kinsey.

The Kinseys In High Class Repertoire

It was early in the summer of 1888 that M.L. Kinsey, a veteran actor for his twenty-four years opened with his own repertoire company in Des Moines, Iowa. On the morning after the show’s opening night a Des Moines paper had this to say: “The Kinsey’s, now playing the opera house block for the week is strictly a high-class company and the most refined may rest assured of a clean model show. The people are all high-grade artists in their several parts; the specialty work is exceedingly beautiful and fine.”

With this encouragement, M.L. took his show eastward playing opera houses and town halls along the way. His goal was New York. In the summer of 1901, he set up his first tent-theatre in Shreve, Ohio He must have liked Ohio for Shreve was the headquarters for the show for a number of years. Each spring the show would leave town for its tour of week stands through the towns close enough to be in reach of the horse drawn wagons that hauled the equipment.

The Fremont Messenger of August 2nd, 1905 contained this story of a reporter’s visit to the show: “ Messenger reporter spent one of the most interesting forenoons of her life today at the white canvas city on the Ward lot on W. State Street *** the present home of the Kinsey’s who are giving a series of most entertaining plays this week *** The name of Kinsey in electric lights above the entrance signifies the progressiveness to all that lies behind.”

Some of the regulations included in the Kinsey’s pamphlets of requests for behavior of the actors might be good advice today. They include: “Don’t brag before strangers about being broke. Don’t spit tobacco around the stage. Don’t go on the stage without your shoes polished. Don’t walk through the audience with your hat on. We pay salaries and want something in return. Attend Strictly to your own business, an engagement with this company is for a lifetime.”

As there have been three generations of Kinsey’s on one side of the footlights so have their been the same number of generations on the other side of the footlights. Recently a man with a child in his arms came to Madge before the show and told her that his father had brought him as a baby in arms to see the Kinsey’s. He was carrying on the tradition of the audiences. And this year the Kinsey’s look back with pardonable pride on their sixty years in show business.

Many things have changed since those early days at the turn of the century. Then the stage was lighted by flickering gas footlights. Huge lumbering hay-racks hauled the canvas and scenery from town to town. On the stage the villain was always equipped with a large black hat and mustache to match and a long finger which he used to point in a sinister manner toward the wings. The heroine was easily recognized by the shawl over her head and the “Cheeild” in her arms. In those days the actors traveled by rail, when they could make connections, and ate in the “cook tent” behind the big top.

Yes, many changes have taken place, but one thing has remained the same. It was M.L. Kinsey’s idea back in 1888 that the people who came in the front door of the Kinsey tent were not customers but friends. And so it is today. To the legion that were the friends of M.L. Kinsey were added the many of Frank Miller and to all of these we add the hundreds who every summer night come in the tent and shout, “Hiya Madge!” It is to you, our many friends, that this souvenir program is dedicated.

PIX#4 M.L. KINSEY — founder

Morris Lewis Kinsey, or as he was better known to thousands, “M.L.,” was born in Des Moines, Iowa and was the youngest son of the Hon. Lewis Kinsey who was judge of the Supreme Court of Des Moines. After receiving his education in Iowa he entered the theatrical profession at an early age, and traveled with various well known theatrical companies in the 1800's and organized his own company in 1888 playing the smaller towns in Iowa and moving into Ohio shortly after. Mr. Kinsey was a 32nd degree Mason and a member of the Elks Lodge and made thousands of friends in his travels.

PIX#5 FRANK MILLER

Frank F. Miller came to the Kinsey’s in 1900 as comedian and specialty artist. After his marriage to Mrs. Kinsey he took over the managerial duties in the style of M.L. Kinsey and endeared himself to all who knew him. Mrs. And Mrs. Miller both passed away in 1944.

PIX#6 BETH KINSEY

Beth Kinsey Miller met and married M.L. Kinsey while he was touring with his company in Michigan. Mrs. Kinsey was born into a non-theatrical family but with the careful tutoring of her husband soon graduated into a leading lady. After her husband’s death in 1907 she took over all the duties of the show. Later she married Frank F. Miller and retired from the company in 1937.

The Kinsey’s of Today

PIX#7 Under the Marquee

PIX#8 MADGE KINSEY GRAF

PIX#9 JEAN GRAVES

PIX#10 HARRY GRAF

PIX#11 BETTY MURDOCK

Madge Kinsey Graf, daughter of M.L. and Beth Kinsey, has been trouping all her life. She made her first stage appearance in swaddling clothes in her father’s arms; needless to say, she did the part in pantomime. Top billing on the Kinsey show in 1901 went to “Baby Madge, Phenomenal Child Artist”. The parts she has played under canvas since then are far too numerous for listing, or even for remembering. They run all the way from child parts through ingenues to leads, and from there by way of comedy maids to characters. Today, with her husband, Harry, she is the manager of the same show with which she began her career.

When Harry Graf first joined the show it was in the capacity of advertising agent, actor and husband of the leading lady, Madge. He continues as all three and has since added the duties of manager, electrician, carpenter, boss canvas-man, stage hand . . . in short, anything that has to be done around the show.

Bette and Jean, the third generation, were born on the Kinsey show the same as their mother. They have grown up playing many of the same parts that their mother and grandmother played before them. Both of the girls are married now (Bette is Mrs. Jack Murdock, Jean is Mrs. Glen Graves) and with their husbands they carry on the Kinsey tradition.

PIX12 Kathryn Kinsey Travis and her daughter, Patsy, are now retired from show business and are living in Fostoria, Ohio.

PIX#13 Esther Imig, who has been greeting you at the box office of the Kinsey’s for thirty-five years.

PIX#14 & PIX #15 George and Jo-Ann Colbert, two of your old favorites, who have been with the company since 1935, are now in Fostoria, Ohio, with the John B. Rogers Producing Company.

PIX#16 Toby Imig

PIX#17 & PIX #18 Tony and Bernice Toniuttie ... this is their second season with the company. In the winter they are on tour with the Black Hills Passion Play ... Bernice as Organist and choral director ... Tony as company manager and a principal in the cast.

PIX#19 Jack Murdock comes from a theatrical family. He joined the company in 1946. In the winter months Jack attends Ohio State University.

PIX#20 Pep Graves hails from Sarasota, Florida. He was raised under the big top of the Ringling Bros. Circus. This is his second season with the show.

PIX#21 Winter quarters. Everyone works but Toby.

But

PIX#22 Madge makes him work in the summer.

PIX#23 Looking over script

PIX#24 Dick Kline makes his debut this year with the Kinsey’s. In the words of Rip Van Winkle: “May you live long and prosper.”

PIX#25 THE KINSEY’S OF 1901

PIX#26 THE FAMILY

PIX#27 Our mascot, “Rags — 16 years with the Kinsey’s

PIX#28 Newcomer — “Patches”

PIX#29 THE KINSEY’S OF 1939

What Dennis Smith says ... Canton Repository: There must be a lesson for producers of both stage and screen entertainment in the record of the Kinseys who have settled down at the Grand for what surely will be a long and comparatively profitable engagement. It isn’t size for the company consists of less than a dozen players. It isn’t spectacle for the company will spend less for a year’s plays than a movie company spends on a single setting. It isn’t sophistication for you can hunt through all their scrips without finding a sophisticated line. If anybody wants to know, the answer to Kinsey’s success is simple. It’s just plain, old fashioned hockum. Boy gets girl, villain gets a literal kick in the pants, redhead outsmarts the smart aleck and virtue is its own reward. January 19, 1939

Cleveland Plain Dealer — Oct. 18, 1936 — William G. McKee: Madge Kinsey, Ohio’s “Crossroad’s Queen.

Billboard — Jan. 27, 1945: Grafs in New York; Jane Cowl weaves Kinsey air stint.

Toledo Blade — Mitch Woodbury — Jan. 18, 1945: ***The Kinsey’s***toured the smaller towns and endeared themselves to the natives of these communities throughout the state.

Akron Beacon-Journal — Murray Power — Aug. 4, 1946: “It’s happy days again” in many small Ohio cities this summer. With peace, Ohio’s most unusual entertainment organization, the Kinsey’s is back again.

Billboard — July 26, 1947: Overflow turnout drawn by Kinseys at Canton debut.

Mansfield News-Journal — Larry Murphy — Sept. 7, 1947: The Kinseys are back. America’s oldest and most continuous repertoire company has returned to the same old stand *** to write the 59th chapter of the Kinsey story.

Columbus Dispatch — Dec. 22, 1946: Thousands of Ohioans of another generation saw their first stage show when the Kinseys came to town as early as 1900 with its advertised offerings of “strictly high-class drama and musical entertainment.”