Howard Keel, born Harold Clifford Keel (April 13, 1917 or 1919 – November 7, 2004) was an American actor and singer. He starred in many film musicals of the 1950s.
Early years
Harry Keel was born in Gillespie, Illinois, to Navyman-turned-coalminer Homer Keel and his wife, Grace Osterkamp Keel. (It is often stated that his birth name was Harold Leek; this was a mistake made by the MGM publicity department in the 1950s.)
Young Harry spent his childhood in poverty. As a young boy in Gillespie one of his teachers, Miss Rosa Burke, noticed Harry wasn't eating any lunch. From that day forward, Miss Burke would pack two lunches,—one for herself and one for Harry. When Harry became famous and would perform near Gillespie, Miss Burke was always sent tickets to attend his performances.
After his father's death in 1930, he and his mother moved to California, where he graduated from Fallbrook High School at the age of 17 and took various odd jobs until finally settling at Douglas Aircraft Company, where he became a traveling representative.
Career and personal life
At the age of 20, he was overheard singing by his landlady, Mom Rider, and was encouraged to take vocal lessons. One of his musical heroes was the great baritone Lawrence Tibbett and Howard would later say that finding out that his own voice was a basso cantante was one of the greatest disappointments of his life. Nevertheless, his first public performance came in the summer of 1941 when he played the role of Samuel the Prophet in Handel's oratorio Saul and David (singing a duet with bass-baritone George London).
Just a couple years after this, in 1943, Harold met and married his first wife, actress Rosemary Cooper. In 1945 Harold briefly understudied for John Raitt in the Broadway hit Carousel, before being assigned to Oklahoma! by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. It was during this time, he accomplished a feat that has never been duplicated: he performed the leads in both shows on the same day.
In 1947 Oklahoma! became the first American musical, post-war, to travel to London, England, and Harold went with it. On the opening night, 30 April, at the Drury Lane Theatre, the capacity audience (which included the future Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom) demanded fourteen encores. Harold Keel was hailed as the next great star and was the toast of the West End.
During the London run, the marriage of Harold and Rosemary ended in divorce, and Harold fell in love with a young member of the show's chorus, dancer Helen Anderson. They married in January 1949 and, a year later, Harold - now called Howard - became a father for the first time to daughter Kaija.
While living in London, Keel made his film debut as Howard Keel at the British Lion studio in Elstree, in The Small Voice (1948), released in the US as Hideout, playing an escaped convict, holding up a playwright and his wife in their English country cottage.
Additional Broadway credits include Saratoga, No Strings, and Ambassador. He appeared at The Muny in St. Louis, MO as General Waverly in White Christmas (2000), Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady (1996); Emile de Becque in South Pacific (1992), and Adam in Seven Brides For Seven Brothers (1978).
MGM years
From London's West End, Howard ended up at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer making his film musical debut as Frank Butler in the movie version of Irving Berlin's Annie Get Your Gun (1950).
Howard's MGM career was to be a frustrating business. MGM never seemed to know quite what to do with him and, outside of plum roles in the films Show Boat (1951), Kiss Me Kate (1953), Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954), and Kismet (1955), he was forced into a stream of unremarkable musicals and B-films. On loan-out at Warner Brothers, he played Wild Bill Hickok in Calamity Jane (1953), a highly popular, Oscar-winning musical filmed in 1953, starring Doris Day in one of her most famous screen roles. This film was Warner Brothers' answer to Annie Get Your Gun, also including the smash hit song "Secret Love".
There were two more children born to Howard and Helen, daughter Kirstine in 1952 and son Gunnar in 1955. Soon after, Howard was released from his contract and returned to his first love, the stage.
1960s and early 1970s
As America's taste in entertainment changed, finding jobs became harder and harder for Howard. The 1960s held little chance for career advancement, with a round of nightclub work, B-Westerns and summer stock.
Under the strain, Howard began to drink heavily, and his marriage to Helen crumbled. They divorced in 1970.
But 1970 proved to be fortuitous for Howard after all. He was set up on a blind date with airline stewardess Judy Magamoll, who was 25 years his junior and had never even heard of him. Years later Howard would say it was love at first sight, but the age difference bothered him tremendously. For Judy, however, it wasn't a problem, and with the aid of Robert Frost's poem "What Fifty Said", she convinced him to try the relationship. They were married in December 1970 and his drinking problem soon ceased. He resumed his routine of nightclub, cabaret and summer stock jobs with his new wife at his side, and, in 1971-72, appeared briefly in the West End and Broadway productions of the flop musical, Ambassador.
Then, in 1974, Howard became a father for the fourth time, to daughter Leslie Grace.
The Love Boat, Dallas, and his revived career
Howard continued to tour, his wife and daughter in tow, but by 1980 he had had enough of struggling to find work and he moved his family to Oklahoma, intending to join an oil company. They had barely settled there when Howard was called back to California to appear with Jane Powell on an episode of The Love Boat. While he was there, he was told that the producers of the smash hit television series Dallas wanted to talk to him. After several cameo appearances, Howard joined the show permanently as the dignified, if hot tempered, oil baron Clayton Farlow and his career reached heights it had never seen before.
Recording career
With his renewed fame, Howard began his first solo recording career at age 64, as well as a wildly successful concert career in the UK. He released an album in 1984 called "With Love", that sold poorly, thus indicating that though the American public were happy to see him as a supporting actor on hit TV show, they were not prepared for a full resumption of his previous stardom. In January 1986 he underwent double heart bypass surgery.
Even after Dallas he continued to sing, and kept his voice in remarkable shape. In 1994, he and Judy moved to Palm Desert, CA. The Keels were always active in charity events, helping their community and were well loved amongst the residents. In particular, Howard and Judy attended the annual Howard Keel Golf Classic at Mere Golf Club in Cheshire, England, which raised money for the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC). He attended for many years, up until the year of his death.
Death
Howard died at his home in Palm Desert on November 7, 2004, six weeks after being diagnosed with colon cancer. He is survived by Judy, his wife of 34 years, his four children, ten grandchildren and a great-granddaughter. He was cremated and his ashes scattered at various favorite places including Mere Golf Club, Liverpool John Lennon Airport, and in Tuscany, Italy.
Family
Keel had four children, three with second wife Helen Anderson – two daughters, Katija Liane (born January 14, 1950) and Kirstine Elizabeth (born June 21, 1952), and a son, Gunnar Louis (born June 3, 1955) – and one with his third wife Judy – a daughter, Leslie Grace (born September 1, 1974).
Filmography
Features:
Short Subjects:
TV series
References
External links
