Kay Laurell (born Ruth Leslie; June 28, 1890[2][3] – January 31, 1927) was an American stage and silent film actress and model.

During her stint as a model, she posed for artists and illustrators, including Howard Chandler Christy and William Glackens.

This loophole in the law inspired stage producers and set designers to come up with more inventive and elaborate ways to feature nudity in their shows.

Eaton Travis later recalled, "The story was that Ziegfeld asked for a volunteer to be naked above the waist, and Kay Laurell was the first to consent.

One of the more memorable tableau scenes of that year's Follies featured patriotic and war imagery designed by Ben Ali Haggin.

Social historian Allen Churchill later described the scene: "Actors in battle dress stood frozen in the act of tossing grenades, bayoneting cringing Huns... Follies Girls as Red Cross nurses, waifs in war-torn undress and goddess of war.

Dominating the vivid scene was Miss Kay Laurell representing the Spirit of the Allies, her costume in enough disarray to expose one...breast."

[19][21] Before her death, Laurell drew up a will leaving her property and personal effects to Joseph Whiteside Boyle (who was presumed to be the child's father) and named him the executor of her estate.

Laurell left her $100,000 estate to Boyle because she was unaware that her son, who was born out of wedlock, could legally inherit her assets.

However, one month before Laurell's death, the Legitimacy Act 1926 was passed in England, which allowed her son to inherit her assets.

A similar law in New York (where Laurell also had bank accounts and property) also allowed her son to inherit his mother's estate.

[5][25] Concerned for the child's welfare, Laurell's brother Raleigh J. Leslie, sought a letter of administration for her estate, naming Joseph K. as her next of kin.

[19] He later dropped the matter after discovering that the boy's father, Joseph Whiteside Boyle, had been caring for the child since birth and had no plans to claim Laurell's estate.

Mencken said Laurell possessed "all the arts of the really first-rate harlot" and was "the most successful practitioner of her trade of her generation in New York."

[26] Playwright Channing Pollock wrote, however, "Kay could have gone far if she had been willing to exchange her favors for advancement, but she didn't 'want to get ahead that way'.