Brian Keith (November 14,
1921 – June 24, 1997) was an American
film, television, and
stage actor, who in his four decade-long
career gained recognition for his work in movies such as the
1961 Disney film,
The Parent Trap, the
1966 movie, The Russians
Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming, and the 1975 movie, The
Wind and the Lion. On television, two of his best
known roles were that of a widowed uncle turned bachelor, Bill
Davis, in the
1960s sitcom,
Family
Affair, and the title character of a tough judge, in the
1980s drama,
Hardcastle and McCormick. He
also starred in his own
sitcom which featured
actresses
Shelley Fabares and
Victoria Young, his real-life ex-wife.
Early life
Keith was
born Robert Alba Keith in Bayonne, New
Jersey
, to actor Robert
Keith and stage actress Helena
Shipman, a native of Aberdeen, Washington
. His parents divorced, and he moved to
Hollywood and started his acting career, at the tender age of 2. He
made his acting debut in the silent film
Pied Piper Malone
(
1924) at the age of 3.
His mother continued
to perform on stage and radio, while Robert's grandmother Apker
helped to raise him in Long Island, New York
. She taught young Brian to read books over
his age level. Prior to learning to read, he spent a lot of hours
back stage while his parents performed, being quiet for hours.
Helena fondly recalled keeping little Brian in the dressing room in
one of her dressingroom drawers. He remained calm and was quiet and
would sleep through the entire show. From
1927
through
1929, Keith's stepmother was
Peg Entwistle, a well-known Broadway actress
who committed suicide by jumping from the "H" of the famous
Hollywood sign in
1932.
Military service
After
graduation from East Rockaway
High School in 1939, in East Rockaway,
New York
, he joined the United States Marine Corps
(1942-1945). He served during
World
War II as an
air gunner and received
an
Air Medal.
Acting career
After the war, Keith became a stage actor, branching out into films
and then television. A strong and capable actor, Keith spent many
years playing second leads and gruff sidekicks. He returned to the
box office in
1953,
after having spent eight years in the military, with
Arrowhead, co-starring
Charlton Heston. He guest starred in
Harbor Command,
Wendell Corey's
1950s
drama about the
United States Coast Guard and
starred in his own first series,
Crusader, as the fictional journalist Matt
Anders, who tries to free captive peoples from communist countries.
He won much acclaim for his starring role in Sam Peckinpah's
short-lived
The Westerner
(1960).
He is also fondly remembered for his role as the father of twins in
the
1961 film
The Parent Trap, co-starring
Hayley Mills and
Maureen O'Hara. His performance as
Theodore Roosevelt in
The Wind and the Lion (1975) is
also particularly well-remembered and regarded, being considered
among the best portrayals of an American president on film. Keith
later portrayed Roosevelt's predecessor,
William McKinley, in
Rough Riders, his final film.
Gruff, but likable character actor
In 1952, he made his debut on 3 episodes of
Tales of Tomorrow. These three
episodes had led him to other roles such as
Police Story,
a
1950s anthology show,
Eye Witness,
The United States Steel
Hour,
Robert
Montgomery Presents,
The Motorola Television
Hour,
Campbell
Playhouse, 2 episodes of
The
Mask,
The
Pepsi-Cola Playhouse,
The Elgin Hour,
The Adventures of
Ellery Queen, 3 episodes of
Studio 57,
Jane
Wyman Presents: The Fireside Theatre,
The Ford Television
Theatre,
Wire
Service,
Climax!,
Zane Grey Theater,
Rawhide,
Laramie,
The
Untouchables,
The
Americans,
Outlaws,
The Virginian,
The Fugitive, 2 episodes of
Wagon Train, 5 episodes of
77 Sunset Strip, 2 episodes
of
Major Dad,
Touched By An Angel,
Walker, Texas Ranger, among many
others. His final guest-starring role was on 3 episodes of
Spider-Man.
Television roles
Family Affair
The movies Keith led in the
box office,
including,
The Russians
Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming (
1966), led him to his biggest break in 1966, the role
of Uncle Bill Davis on
CBS's popular television
situation comedy
Family
Affair. This role that earned him three
Emmy Award nominations for
Best Actor in
A Comedy Series. The show made him a household name. It
was also the answer to such successful
1960s
and
1970s sitcoms that
dealt with
widowhood and/or many
single parent issues such as:
The Andy Griffith Show,
My Three Sons,
The Beverly Hillbillies,
Petticoat Junction,
Here's Lucy,
Julia,
The Courtship of Eddie's
Father,
The Brady
Bunch,
The Partridge
Family and
Sanford And
Son. When
CBS requested that he pose
for Christmas publicity shots connected with
Family
Affair, Keith refused on the basis that this was exploitative
of the holiday. During its first season in 1966, the show was an
immediate hit, ranking #15 in the Nielsen Ratings, and became an
overnight sensation.
Also starring on the show was an already established
British character actor,
Sebastian Cabot, as Mr. Giles French. The
show also brought in several unfamiliar actresses and/or actors
(who became Brian Keith lifelong fans):
Kathy Garver as older niece Catherine "Cissy"
Patterson-Davis, the late
Anissa Jones
as Ava Elizabeth "Buffy" Paterson-Davis and
Johnny Whitaker as Jonathan "Jody"
Patterson-Davis. Most of the relative newcomers got along well with
the veteran star, esp. Garver, to whom Keith became a "second
uncle", both on and off the set.
Keith was offered the role of Deke Thornton in
The Wild Bunch also by Sam Peckinpah,
but he turned it down because of Family Affair. This led to a
dispute between the two friends.
By the end of its 5th season in 1971,
Family Affair was
still the most popular show, but
CBS decided to
end the show, after 138 episodes. The reason for the cancellation
was because of the infamous
rural purge
-- which cancelled all
Southern shows to
make room for adult-oriented sitcoms such as the already #1 sitcom,
All in the Family.
Kathy Garver said of the show where it was meant to be an over 40
program where Brian played a bachelor when instead he played the
role of bachelor uncle, "But originally, it was supposed to be a
grown-up show, and Brian Keith was supposed to be this bachelor
with his manny or his valet, at that time, Mr. French, and the
shows were supposed to revolve around him on different dates, and
the kids were supposed to be on the background." Garver and Keith
stayed in touch until Keith's death.
Brian Keith's friendship with Johnny Whitaker's family began in the
mid-1960s, when Whitaker was guest-starring in one of Keith's
mentor's movies, which eventually led him to a co-starring role on
Family Affair. He said, "I had done
The Russians
Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming (1966) with Brian
Keith; and he and I got along real well. We never had any scenes
together in
The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are
Coming. But his hotel room was right down the hall from mine,
and he would always come right after work, and say, 'Can Johnny
Whitaker come out to play?' And so, we did, and at the time he had
1 daughter, 1 on the way and had just adopted another child, I
believe, cause he love kids and was feeling homesick and saw me in
the play, you know?" Whitaker said of the show
Family
Affair was supposed to have another child actor that Keith's
character had wanted to come to fruition, "So, the original role of
Jody was set for a 10-year-old boy. Cissy was supposed to be a
16-year-old girl, and Buffy was a 6-year-old girl. So, Jody was the
middle child, and when Brian had suggested that they take a look at
this little kid, that he just was on a series with, you know, but,
he was sick, and he said 'Oh you're a handful of teams.'" The last
thing Johnny said was about Brian being exhausted from all the hard
work, coming through an apartment on the set, "Take a look a him,
just for a next-door neighbor or something, but he's got a lot of
talent and he was cute, and all this, so I went on the set, I was
one of the only 6-year-old boys, but they had Anissa & Pamela
[voice of Lucy], as I remember and lots of other shows, and a
couple of other girls, and they just had me talk and read some
lines with them, and then, when Anissa and I got together, the
producers said, 'You know what? This is it! Magic for television
twins." Years after the show's cancellation, both Keith and
Whitaker each had successful careers, but had not kept in touch.
The death of Keith's daughter Daisy in 1997 drew both Keith and
Whitaker close while Keith was battling cancer. According to a
1997 interview on
Entertainment Tonight with Brian
Keith, he said Whitaker looked his name up in the phone book and
called his home, which questioned Whitaker, which almost led to a
misunderstanding with each other, but had enjoyed a wonderful
reunion together [over the phone], for the last time, before Keith
took his own life.
In
2007, a decade after Keith's passing,
Whitaker and co-star Kathy Garver were both invited to the
TV Land Awards to pay respects to Keith.
Posthumously, Keith was given a star on the
Hollywood Walk
of Fame
, where Garver was one of the
presenters.
Hardcastle & McCormick
Keith once again returned to series television in
1983 with,
Hardcastle and McCormick, the
latter in the role of a cranky retired
judge
named Milton C. Hardcastle. Familiar actor
Daniel Hugh Kelly co-starred as ex-con
Mark McCormick in the
ABC crime drama with elements
of comedy. The chemistry of Keith & Kelly were both a hit in
the 1980s. Keith continued playing the role until its cancellation
in
1986.
Other roles
Keith went
on to star as the pediatrician Dr. Sean
Jamison in the NBC sitcom The
Brian Keith Show, filmed in California
but set in Hawaii
and also
known as The Little People. Co-star
Shelley Fabares played his daughter, Dr.
Anne Jamison.
Michael Gray
played Ronnie Collins, a student doctor in the first season.
Nancy Kulp and
Roger Bowen appeared in the second season.
Keith's third and last wife, the former Victoria Young, appeared in
the role of
Nurse Puni.
Keith had lead roles in
Archer, and his final TV role,
Heartland.
Keith also starred in the role of Steven "The Fox" Halliday in the
six-part television
miniseries,
The Zoo Gang, about a group of
former underground freedom fighters from
World War II. The show also starred Sir
John Mills,
Lilli
Palmer, and
Barry Morse.
Keith spoke fluent
Russian, which
led to his casting as a Russian in two roles: the Soviet Premier in
World War III
with
Rock Hudson; and as a Soviet
scientist in
Meteor with
Natalie Wood.
In The Russians
Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming, where he played the
unexcitable police chief of an island where a Soviet
submarine runs aground,
however, his character had to have Russian translated to him by
Alan Arkin's character. In his
last film, Keith played President
William McKinley in
Rough Riders (1997). Director
John Milius dedicated
Rough
Riders to "Brian Keith, Actor, Marine, Raconteur."
On June
26, 2008, the Hollywood Walk of Fame installed a star in Brian Keith's honor on the
world famous sidewalk in California.
Personal life
Keith married three times, first to Frances Helm; then, in 1955, to
Judith Landon; and finally, in 1970, to Hawaiian actress Victoria
Young (née Leialoha), who later appeared on
The Brian Keith Show (1972–1974)
as Nurse Puni. Keith fathered four children but also adopted three
others with Judith Landon.
Daisy Keith,
one of his children with Victoria Young, became an actress and
appeared with her father in the short-lived series
Heartland in 1989.
He attended the funeral of longtime friend
Michael Landon in
1991.
Illness and suicide
During the later part of his life, Keith suffered from
emphysema and
lung
cancer despite having quit
smoking ten
years earlier (he appeared in an
endorsement campaign for
Camel cigarettes
in 1955).
He was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot
wound in Malibu,
California
on June 24, 1997, two months after his daughter Daisy committed
suicide. It was also reported that he
had financial problems and suffered from depression throughout his
final days. Keith's family were joined by many mourners at a
private funeral, including
Family
Affair co-stars
Johnny
Whitaker and
Kathy Garver, and
Hardcastle &
McCormick co-star
Daniel Hugh
Kelly.
His
remains are buried next to those of his daughter Daisy at Westwood
Village Memorial Park Cemetery
in Los Angeles, California
.
Quotes
Brian: “In other words...you can't be a misogynist and expect women
to appreciate you.” (Source: Born-Today.com)
Brian: “It was the craziest thing I've ever seen. You like to see
two teams compete like that, but you like to see your team execute
better down the stretch. Give credit to Chapel Hill, they made a
great 3-point shot to get us into overtime, and I wasn't sure how
we were going to pull it out. We had people on both sides fouling
out of the game, but we hung in there and somehow pulled this out.”
(Source: QuoteDaddy.com)
Brian who said in 1968 about starring his own movies: "I've made I
don't know how many pictures. Forty, I guess. I've seen only about
a half dozen of them. We made Reflections in a Golden Eye in Rome
last spring. I really enjoyed working with Liz and Brando and that
great director, John Huston. But the kind of picture I enjoy seeing
is something like The Parent Trap. That was a charming thing with
Hayley Mills playing my twin daughters. I saw that four times. I
even took my wife's parents to see it. I like it so much I forgot I
was in it, as a matter of fact." (Source:
PhotoplayMagazine.com)
Brian on trying to live a long life: "If I live to be a
hundred--and I hope I do--I won't have time to read all the books I
want to read, or talk to the people I want to know. Not party talk.
That's a waste of time. Real talk." (Source:
PhotoplayMagazine.com)
Brian on his handsomeness: “What for? I don't go to the Daisy or
any of that. We don't give parties under a striped awning out over
the lawn for two hundred people, four of whom we like." (Source:
PhotoplayMagazine.com)
Brian who said in 1969 on playing the role of an on-screen uncle,
as he played the role of a real-life father: "This is the type of
show I love, because it reminds me of what happiness I have with my
wife and our children." (Source: PhotoplayMagazine.com)
Brian who
said in 1984 about leaving Family
Affair, to spend time with his family in Hawaii, before
casting as Hardcastle: "I get tired of sitting home and
doin' nothing. If I'm doing something eight months of the
year, I don't mind loafing the other four. But, lately, I've been
finding fewer and fewer movies I'd like to do. And when that
happens, I get hard to live with. Then this thing came along. I
read it. I liked it. This character Hardcastle: I figured I could
live with him for five years if I had to. There was something going
on there. You don't get a helluva lot of character in series TV.
They're more likely to star the car." (Source: TVGuide.com)
Brian who became very antsy about the car that was needed in every
script: "I don't pay any attention. The stunt people take care of
all that. All I do is get in and out of the Coyote [the car Skid
drove, which required anyone riding in it to enter and exit through
the window], which is no mean trick. You can't get into the S.O.B.
without bending yourself into a pretzel. Me, I'd rather drive a
pickup." (Source: TVGuide.com)
Brian on beating out 3 others actors for the role of
Hardcastle: "I never heard of these guys. Of course, I can
be talking to 40 Academy Award winners and never know the
difference.
People in Muncie, Indiana
, probably know more about them than I do.
But I figure what the hell, if they're smart enough to hire me,
they must have something." (Source: TVGuide.com)
Brian: “The only attraction is the time. I work just 70 days a year
on the show. I can still make two, three movies a year if I want
to... If it were
Bonanza , walking
around the Ponderosa, tied up nearly all year, no-o-o chance.
That's a fate worse than death." (Source: TVGuide.com)
Work
Stage
Television
- Target: The
Corruptors! (ABC, guest star)
- Sam Benedict (NBC, guest
star)
- Crusader (CBS,
1955–1956, 52 episodes in title role)
- The Westerner
(NBC, 1960)
- Outlaws (NBC,
1961-1962, 2 episodes as guest star)
- Alfred Hitchcock
Hour: "Night of the Owl" (CBS, 1962)
- Fear in a Desert
City (Pilot for The Fugitive) (1963)
- Family Affair (CBS,
1966–1971)
- The Brian Keith
Show (NBC, 1972–1974).
- The Zoo Gang (ITV, 1974)
- Archer (NBC, six
episodes, 1975)
- How the West
Was Won (originally titled The Macahans) (ABC,
1977) as General Stonecipher
- The Chisholms (CBS, 1979)
as Andrew Blake
- Hardcastle and
McCormick (ABC, 1983–1986)
- The Murder of
Sherlock Holmes (Pilot for Murder, She Wrote) (CBS, 1984)
- Pursuit of
Happiness (ABC, 1987)
- Heartland (CBS, 1989)
- Walter and Emily
(NBC, 1991–1992)
- Star Trek: Deep Space
Nine: "Progress" (Syndicated, 1993)
- Spider-Man
- Uncle Ben
- Touched by an Angel
(CBS, 1996)
Film
References
External links
- Retrieved on 2009-5-14
- Retrieved on 2009-5-14
- Retrieved on 2009-5-14
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