John Brendan Kelly Sr. (October 4, 1889 – June 20, 1960) was an American triple Olympic champion, the first in the sport of rowing. The Philadelphia-based Kelly also was a multimillionaire in the bricklaying and construction industry. He also was involved in politics, serving as Pennsylvania secretary of revenue and running unsuccessfully for mayor of Philadelphia in the 1935 Philadelphia mayoral election.
Kelly was the father of actress Grace Kelly, Princess of Monaco (thus maternal grandfather of Albert II, Prince of Monaco), and of Jack Kelly Jr., an accomplished rower who served as president of the U.S. Olympic Committee.
Early life
Kelly was born in Philadelphia, one of 10 children of Irish immigrants John Henry Kelly (1847–1917), who emigrated from his homestead near Newport, County Mayo, in 1869, and Mary Ann Costello (1852–1926), who arrived in the U.S. in 1867. He attended public schools and at night attended the Spring Garden Institute.
In 1907, he began bricklaying in Philadelphia as an apprentice at his brother Patrick's construction firm. Standing 6'2", he was a gifted athlete and competed in football and basketball in addition to rowing, which he learned on the Schuylkill River. By 1916, Kelly was a national rowing champion and the best sculler in the United States. As part of the World War I callup, Kelly joined the United States Army as a private in October 1917. He rose to the rank of lieutenant by the time he was discharged in April 1919. While in the Army, Kelly entered the armed forces boxing tournament as a heavyweight and ran up a 12–0 record before being waylaid by a broken ankle. Future world professional boxing champion Gene Tunney won the tournament. In later years, Kelly would kid Tunney: "Aren't you lucky I broke my ankle?"
Following his Army discharge in 1919, Kelly continued his dominance in the single scull. He also started a brickwork contracting company in Philadelphia, John B. Kelly, Inc, with a $7,000 loan from his brothers George, a future Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, and Walter, who was a popular vaudeville actor. A self-promoter, Kelly coined the slogan "Kelly for Brickwork", which was often seen at local construction sites.
Kelly developed a technique to ensure payment for his brickwork from less-than-trustworthy real estate developers. Kelly's crews would mortar a single pane of glass into each chimney they built. When new home owners would complain to realtors about smoke backing into their houses from the fireplaces, and the developers would then complain to Kelly, he would reply, "I'll take care of it when your check clears." Once paid, Kelly would send crews out to drop a brick down each chimney they'd constructed, smashing the glass panes and solving the problem.
In 1919, Kelly played professional football for the Holmesburg Athletic Club. The team would go on to win the 1919 and 1920 Philadelphia City Championship. In a 1919 game against a team from Camden, New Jersey, Kelly scored three touchdowns in just the first quarter of the game.
Rowing career
Kelly won 126 straight races in the single scull in 1919 and 1920, a six-time U.S. national champion who was one of the most popular figures in the sport.
Rejection by the Henley Royal Regatta
In 1920, amid his winning streak, Kelly applied to race in the Diamond Sculls at the Henley Royal Regatta. Held annually on the River Thames in Henley, England, it was the most prestigious event in rowing. But the event's organizers rejected his application, citing an earlier dispute with his rowing club and the fact that he had worked as a manual laborer.
The minutes of the regatta's Committee of Management for June 3, 1920, read: "The list of entries ... outside of the United Kingdom under Rule iv was presented ... and received with the exception of Mr J.B. Kelly of the Vesper Boat Club to compete in the Diamond Sculls, which was refused under the resolution passed by the Committee on 7th June, 1906 'viz' 'That no entry from the Vesper Boat Club of Philadelphia, or from any member of their 1905 crew be accepted in future': Mr Kelly was also not qualified under Rule I (e) of the General Rules (manual labour)."
That 1906 resolution banned members of the Vesper Boat Club from the event because their eight-man team in the Grand Challenge Cup had used a public subscription to raise the money to travel to London, breaching the regatta's rule on amateurism.