Kirkland was born on September 15, 1901, in Mexico City, the son of Robert Gowland Kirkland and Charlotte Megan. He was the grandson of rear admiral William Alexander Kirkland and Consuela Gowland. Kirkland attended the
Taft School in
Watertown, Connecticut and the
University of Virginia. His first play on Broadway was
The Devil to Pay. He was also a freelance writer and contributed stories to popular national magazines. In the late 1920s, Kirkland moved to Hollywood and starred as leading man to
Tallulah Bankhead in
Tarnished Lady (1931). Other credits include ''
Charlie Chan's Chance (1932), Social Register (1934) A Face in the Crowd (1957), A Passport to Hell and Devil's Lottery''. On radio, Kirkland played David Brewster in the soap opera
Big Sister in the early 1940s, Curt Lansing in ''
John's Other Wife, and Russell Barrington in Society Girl'' in that same era. He toured as one of the Yale Puppeteers and then worked with the troupe at the
Turnabout Theatre in Los Angeles, which operated from 1941 to 1956. His friend and theater colleague
Forman Brown used him as the model for one of his characters in the early gay novel
Better Angel (1933). Kirkland was engaged to actress
Margaret Barker, but a planned wedding in 1942 never came to fruition. He married entertainer
Gypsy Rose Lee in 1942.
Carl Van Doren introduced them. They separated after three months and finally were divorced in 1944. Their son Eric later was recognized as the son of director
Otto Preminger. From 1944 to 1950, he was married to socialite, actress, and TV producer
Phyllis Adams (1923-2004), and they had one daughter,
Alexandra "Sandy" Marsh, who committed suicide falling from the
Park Belvedere 28th floor in 1987. In the 1950s, Kirkland owned an art gallery in
Palm Beach, Florida, and in 1945, he purchased Villa del Sarmiento, an oceanfront Palm Beach estate. At the time of his death, Kirkland was living in Cuernavaca, and his daughter said he had wasted all of his money. He died in
Alimodian,
Iloilo,
Philippines. == In Literature ==