Here is Kay Johnson's biography:
Kay Johnson was a talented actress who abandoned a prominent stage and film career to become the wife of actor John Cromwell and mother to their two children. Born Catherine Townsend Johnson, she was the daughter of a Michigan architect and received her early education at the Drew Seminary for Young Women and later at Sargent's Dramatic School of the American Academy of Dramatic Art.
Johnson's first professional role was in the Theatre Guild's Chicago production of "R.U.R." and she went on to appear on Broadway in "Go West, Young Man" and other stage productions. She met Cromwell while performing in the play "A Free Soul" in 1928 and they married later that year.
Johnson's film career began with a role in Cecil B. DeMille's "Dynamite" in 1929, followed by appearances in "The Ship from Shanghai", "This Mad World", "The Spoilers", and "Madam Satan". She continued to alternate between stage and film work, appearing in productions such as "Cyrano de Bergerac" and "When Ladies Meet" on stage, and in films like "American Madness" and "This Man Is Mine" on screen.
Johnson's most notable film role was as Nora in W. Somerset Maugham's "Of Human Bondage" in 1934, directed by her husband Cromwell. She went on to appear in several more films, including "Village Tale", "Jalna", and "Son of Fury: The Story of Benjamin Blake".
After her divorce from Cromwell in the late 1940s, Johnson retired from acting and remained out of the public eye until her death at the age of 70 in 1975.
