Inducted in 2017
Model; Stage, Studio & Screen Actor

By the time the Prep had become a day school in the early 1900s, it was common for the local boys to work after school, on weekends, or during the summer — some to pick up a little extra spending money; others to help with tuition. Whichever the case, alumni have often looked back at these first part-time jobs as rewarding and character-building experiences that would help prepare them for their careers later in life. To this day, Congressman Joseph DioGuardi, Class of 1958, often mentions the value of those Saturdays behind the counter over on Tremont Avenue at his mom and pop’s grocery.  And, of course, legendary investor and financial advisor Mario Gabelli, Class of 1961, has proudly told of his adventures as a weekend caddy during his Rose Hill years. 

But among the hundreds of Prepsters who have mowed, tutored, lifeguarded, retailed, or stock-boyed their ways through high school, only one could ever have said that his afterschool job was nothing short of helping to launch the entire motion picture industry: Walter Kinsella, Class of 1917.

Walter Aloysius Kinsella was born in Manhattan to Irish immigrant parents on August 16, 1900. His father, Simon, was a boiler room engineer. His mother, Margaret “Maggie” Casey Kinsella, was a homemaker. 

Walter would spend his early years in Manhattan with his parents and three siblings — Simon Jr., Marguerite, and Albert. As was tragically common in those days, another sister, Annie, did not survive infancy. By 1910, the Kinsellas had moved to a house on Devoe Terrace in the University Heights section of the Bronx. Walter’s father would pass away shortly thereafter.

Few details remain from Walter’s school days. We know that he was somewhat of a musician from a young age — a trumpeter, to be specific. We also know that the tall, dashing young man was an impressive and much-decorated athlete, although he would run most of his races with local athletic clubs rather than on Rose Hill teams.

But perhaps one of the most remarkable dimensions of Walter’s teenage years was his afterschool job: working on some of the earliest films ever made. In those days, Edison Studios was located right here in the Bronx, just a short walk from the Fordham campus on the corner of Decatur Avenue and Oliver Place. While one would imagine that young Walter would shrug off his schoolboy tie every afternoon to jump into his role as the studio’s behind-the-scenes factotum, it also seems as if he had a few moments on the other side of the camera as well, presumably as a go-to long and lanky extra. As noted in the International Television Almanac, Kinsella “appeared in pictures produced in Edison Studios in the Bronx” from 1915 to 1917.

As the United States entered the First World War, a young and patriotic Walter Kinsella would answer the call to fight for freedom overseas alongside many of his fellow Fordhamites. Putting his student and studio days behind him, he enlisted in the Marines. While he would leave the Prep mid-semester, and may have already begun taking some University courses — as late as 1920 the distinction between the Prep and University years was not always quite as clear as it today — Walter Kinsella is considered a member of the Prep Class of 1917.

After the war, Walter would find work as a model for Arrow Menswear. His talent, good looks and experience in the film industry — together with his exposure as an “Arrow Man” — would help Kinsella launch a stage, radio, and screen career that would span the next four decades, starting with a part in the 1924 production of What Price Glory? at the Plymouth (today the Schoenfeld) Theatre.

Decade after decade, Walter Kinsella would continue to remain a familiar presence in the acting world. While continuing his stage appearances right through to his final performance in the 1959 production of Juno at the Winter Garden Theatre, he would also branch out into radio, television and film, voicing such recurring roles as Pat Patton in the famous Dick Tracy program, whom he played throughout the 1930s, and Happy McCann, a retired police lieutenant turned tobacconist in the radio and later television series Martin Kane, Private Eye that ran from 1949 through 1954.

Though starring as Lieutenant Corrigan on the big screen in The Tattooed Stranger, a 1950 film noir police procedural shot entirely on location around the City — including his own home borough — Walter Kinsella would best be remembered for his small screen work, appearing in such series as The Naked City, Perry Mason, Hazel, and Alfred Hitchcock Presents. The boy from Devoe Terrace certainly fit the bill whenever a tough New York Irishman was needed.

Walter would marry Jane Davis, a model who had herself appeared in several print ads. For a while in the 1940s, they were well-known as a glamorous New York celebrity couple. They would have two children, Kevin and Kathleen.

Walter Kinsella passed away on May 11, 1975. He was 74 years old.  His work, however, lives on — through digitized and remastered recordings on YouTube, Netflix, and old-time radio websites: technologies a 16-year-old Walter could hardly have even imagined as he crossed Webster Avenue on way to work after school a century ago.