Evelyn Keyes

Evelyn Louise Keyes (November 20, 1916 – July 4, 2008) was an American film actress. She is best known for her role as Suellen O'Hara in the 1939 film Gone with the Wind.

Evelyn Keyes
Keyes c. 1940s
Born	Evelyn Louise Keyes (1916-11-20)November 20, 1916[1] Port Arthur, Texas, U.S.
Died	July 4, 2008(2008-07-04) (aged 91) Peppers Estate Care Home, Montecito, California, U.S.
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1938–1993
Spouse(s)	Barton Bainbridge ​ ( m. 1938; died 1940) Charles Vidor ​ ( m. 1944; div. 1945) John Huston ​ ( m. 1946; div. 1950) Artie Shaw ​ ( m. 1957; div. 1985)
Partner(s)	Michael Todd (1953–1956)
Children	1

Early life

Evelyn Keyes was born in Port Arthur, Texas,[2] to Omar Dow Keyes and Maude Ollive Keyes, the daughter of a Methodist minister. After Omar Keyes died when she was three years old, Keyes moved with her mother to Atlanta, Georgia, where they lived with her grandparents. As a teenager, Keyes took dancing lessons and performed for local clubs such as the Daughters of the Confederacy.

Film career

A chorus girl by age 18, Keyes came out to Hollywood and was introduced to Cecil B. DeMille who in her own words “signed me to a personal contract without even making a test”.[3] After a handful of B movies at Paramount Pictures, she landed a minor role in Gone with the Wind (1939), that of Scarlett O'Hara's sister Suellen.[4] (She was later interviewed for the 1988 documentary The Making of a Legend: Gone with the Wind.)

Columbia Pictures signed her to a contract. In 1941, she played an ingenue in Here Comes Mr. Jordan. She spent most of the early 1940s playing leads in many of Columbia's B dramas and mysteries. She appeared as the female lead opposite Larry Parks in Columbia's blockbuster hit The Jolson Story (1946). She followed this up with an enjoyable minor screwball comedy, The Mating of Millie, with Glenn Ford. She was then in a 1949 role as Kathy Flannigan in Mrs. Mike.[5] Keyes' last major film role was a small part as Tom Ewell's vacationing wife in The Seven Year Itch (1955), which starred Marilyn Monroe. Keyes officially retired in 1956, but continued to act.

Personal life

She was married to Barton Oliver Bainbridge Sr. from 1938 until his death from suicide in 1940. Later, she married and divorced director Charles Vidor (1943–1945), actor/director John Huston (23 July 1946 – February 1950),[6][7][8] and bandleader Artie Shaw (1957–1985).[9] Keyes said of her many relationships, "I always took up with the man of the moment and there were many such moments."[10] While married to Huston, the couple adopted a Mexican child, Pablo, whom Huston had discovered while on the set of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.

Her autobiography, Scarlett O'Hara's Younger Sister: My Lively Life In and Out of Hollywood, was published in 1977.[4] Keyes expressed her opinion that Mrs. Mike was her best film. She also wrote of the personal cost she paid by having an abortion just before Gone with the Wind was to begin filming,[11] as the experience left her unable to have children. Among the many Hollywood affairs she recounted in Scarlett O'Hara's Younger Sister were those with producer Michael Todd (who left Evelyn for Elizabeth Taylor), Glenn Ford, Sterling Hayden, Dick Powell, Anthony Quinn, David Niven and Kirk Douglas. She had to fend off Harry Cohn's advances during her career in Columbia.

Keyes died on July 4, 2008, from uterine cancer at the Pepper Estates in Montecito, California.[12] She was later cremated with her ashes being divided among her relatives with the remaining half sent to Lamar University in Port Arthur, Texas and the last of the cremated remains being buried with her relatives in the family plot at The Waco Baptist Church Cemetery, Waco, Georgia, with a small tombstone with the epitaph, Gone With The Wind, where her ashes were buried in October 2008.[12]

Filmography

Evelyn Keyes in The Seven Year Itch (1955)

Excluding appearances as herself.

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1938	The Buccaneer	Madeleine
1938	Sons of the Legion	Linda Lee
1939	Sudden Money	Mary Patterson
1939	Union Pacific	Mrs. Calvin
1939	Gone with the Wind	Suellen O'Hara
1939	Slightly Honorable	Miss Vlissigen
1940	The Lady in Question	Francois Morestan
1940	Before I Hang	Martha Garth
1940	Beyond the Sacramento	Lynn Perry
1941	The Face Behind the Mask	Helen Williams
1941	Here Comes Mr. Jordan	Bette Logan
1941	Ladies in Retirement	Lucy
1942	The Adventures of Martin Eden	Ruth Morley
1942	Flight Lieutenant	Susie Thompson
1943	The Desperadoes	Allison McLeod
1943	Dangerous Blondes	Jane Craig
1943	There's Something About a Soldier	Carol Harkness
1944	Nine Girls	Mary O'Ryan
1944	Strange Affair	Jacqueline 'Jack' Harrison
1945	A Thousand and One Nights	Babs
1946	Renegades	Hannah Brockway
1946	The Thrill of Brazil	Vicki Dean
1946	The Jolson Story	Julie Benson
1947	Johnny O'Clock	Nancy Hobson
1948	The Mating of Millie	Millie McGonigle
1948	Enchantment	Grizel Dane
1949	Mr. Soft Touch	Jenny Jones
1949	Mrs. Mike	Kathy O'Fallon Flannigan
1950	The Killer That Stalked New York	Sheila Bennet
1951	Smuggler's Island	Vivian Craig
1951	The Prowler	Susan Gilvray
1951	Iron Man	Rose Warren Mason
1952	One Big Affair	Jean Harper
1952	It Happened in Paris	Patricia Moran
1953	Rough Shoot	Cecily Paine
1953	99 River Street	Linda James
1954	Hell's Half Acre	Donna Williams
1955	Top of the World	Virgie Rayne
1955	The Seven Year Itch	Helen Sherman
1987	A Return to Salem's Lot	Mrs. Axel

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1951	Lux Video Theatre	Jane	Episode: "Wild Geese"
1955	Climax!	Drusilla Cayley	Episode: "Wild Stallion"
1968	Playhouse	Mrs. Panzack	Episode: "A Matter of Diamonds"
1968	The Ugliest Girl in Town	Mrs. Blair	Episode: "Visitors from a Strange Planet"
1971	From a Bird's Eye View	Mrs. Beal	Episode: "The Matchmakers"
1983	The Love Boat	Mrs. Parker	Episode: "Bricker's Boy/Lotions of Love/The Hustlers"
1985, 1987, 1993	Murder, She Wrote	Edna, Sister Emily, Wanda Polaski	Episodes: "Sticks & Stones", "Old Habits Die Hard", "Dead to Rights"
1986	Amazing Stories	Evelyn Chumsky	Episode: "Boo!"

Bibliography

• Keyes, Evelyn (1971). I Am a Billboard. Lyle Stuart. ISBN 978-0818401077.
• Keyes, Evelyn (1977). Scarlett O'Hara's Younger Sister. Lyle Stuart. ISBN 978-0818402432.
• Keyes, Evelyn (1991). I'll Think about That Tomorrow. Dutton. ISBN 978-0525249696.

References

1. Her birth date is often incorrectly given as 1919, but census records list 1916.
2. Hollywood Remembered
3. Interview with Johnny Carson, The Tonight Show, July 28, 1977
4. Thomas, Bob (July 12, 2008). "Actress Evelyn Keyes dies at 91 in California". Associated Press.
5. Hopper, Hedda (October 2, 1949). "Evelyn Keyes Finally Elevated to Stardom; Leading Lady Bridges Gap Between 'Good' and 'Great' by Her 'Mrs. Mike'". Los Angeles Times. p. D1. Until "Mrs. Mike," Evelyn Keyes had always been considered a fine leading lady rather than a star in the true sense of the word. She seemed to have lacked that final push that bridges the gap between "good" and "great."
6. Hopper, Hedda (July 24, 1946). "Evelyn Keyes married to film director John Huston". Los Angeles Times. p. 2. An impulsive proposal in a Beverly Hills cafe, a midnight airplane ride to Las Vegas and a 3:30 a.m. appearance before the parson provided the "shooting script" for the surprise marriage yesterday of Evelyn Keyes, film star, and John Huston...
7. "Evelyn Keyes Separates From Director-Husband; Actress Cites Incompatibility as Cause of Split With Third Spouse, John Huston". Los Angeles Times. May 24, 1949. p. 2. Evelyn Keyes has separated from her third husband, Director John Huston, the blond actress said yesterday.
8. "Mexican Divorce Ends Evelyn Keyes' Marriage". Los Angeles Times. February 11, 1950. p. 2.
9. "Artie Shaw Plans to Wed Evelyn Keyes". Los Angeles Times. March 6, 1957. p. 2.
10. Gates, Anita. "Evelyn Keyes, 91, Whose Film Roles Included 'Gone With the Wind,' Is Dead". The New York Times.
11. Harmetz, Aljean (July 28, 1977). "'Scarlett O'Hara's Younger Sister'". The New York Times. p. 57. Scarlett O'Hara's Younger Sister is a strange sort of autobiography for a prim Southern girl to have written a sexual odyssey up and down the decades, in which Evelyn Keyes pauses only occasionally to mention a movie she has just started or just finished.
12. Wilson, Scott (September 16, 2016). "Resting Places: The Burial Sites of More Than 14,000 Famous Persons, 3d ed". McFarland – via Google Books.

External links

• Evelyn Keyes, Actress in 'Gone with the Wind' dies at 91
• New York Times Biography
• Evelyn Keyes on IMDb
• Evelyn Keyes at Find a Grave
• Photos of Evelyn Keyes in 'The Jolson Story' 1946 by Ned Scott