Alumni Gazette

When You Hear It

Kenyon

Visit the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, and you’ll probably hear Linda Root Kenyon’s rich, rolling voice. Step into the National Postal Museum or the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., and the voice-over artist can be heard welcoming guests.

Kenyon ’61 says such work—part of a 20-year career that includes radio, theater, and film—suits her style well.

“With narration, I get to help people learn, I get to share a story,” she says.

The daughter of actors, Kenyon was drawn to Rochester as a fan of Broadway icon George Abbott ’11. As fate would have it, the University awarded Abbott an honorary degree the year she graduated.

After graduation, she and her late husband, Hewitt, a former mathematics professor at Rochester, made their home in Washington, D.C., where Kenyon launched her career as an actor.

Most recently, she moved to center stage to tell the story of Eleanor Roosevelt in the short play A Life of My Own: Meeting Eleanor Roosevelt, part of the Montgomery County Senior’s Theatre group that performs in the D.C. area.

Written specifically for her, the play traces some of the public and private moments in Roosevelt’s life.

Kenyon actually met the former first lady in 1959 on a train trip on Thanksgiving Break during her junior year at Rochester. “Eleanor approached me and asked me all those types of questions one asks a young student. Her interviewing skills were quite good as I remember. I was flattered that she took such an interest in me.”

The actor says she enjoys the role because it allows her to explore Roosevelt’s personality while also helping people learn.

“When I play her, I try to get inside her skin, and I’m always amazed that each time I perform, I learn something new about her,” she says. “I relive a time, a conversation, and it’s like it’s new all over again, for both me and the audience.”

—Jenny Leonard