Gosh Howard Keel was quite handsome in his younger years. Any thoughts and dish on this showbiz hunk of yesteryear?

Hopefully this picture link works

I would never have realized that's Keel. Is it from that English crime drama he did in 1948?

I'm not sure [R2] but it's a very dishy picture. To the best of my knowledge which may not be extensive I think he's one of a minority of actors who I have never heard being slagged of his former costars.

Rodgers & Hammerstein gave him his first breaks, r3. They eventually sent him to London in 1947 to play Curly in the original London production of Oklahoma! A British film producer saw him and cast him as thug who kidnaps a young couple in a low budget but well reviewed film (he was being billed as Harold Keel then). I can't remember the English film's name but that and his growing reputation as a singer got him cast in Annie Get Your Gun at MGM, his first Hollywood film. After Annie, he was a major star.

Thank you [R4]

Would you say he is synonymous with the era of Hollywood film musicals ie one of the genres biggest male stars?

His real name was Harold Leek. Never heard any gossip about him...not even shagging his co-stars. He came about a few years too late to have a lengthy career in musicals, but for those 5 years or so he got all the best male roles.

I looked behind a dresser, and there was Howard Keel!

In Kiss Me Kate, he really fills out those tights!

Oh, and he had a great voice too.

He wanted to be a baritone and was disappointed when his teacher told him he was a basso cantante (lyric bass).

[R8] Yes I see what you mean about Howard Keel filling out those tights in Kiss me Kate! Very nice

Loved him in Showboat

At one time he understudied both Curley in "Oklahoma!" and Billy in "Carousel" on Broadway at the same time. He made his film debut in "Annie Get Your Gun" in 1950, and while he did some famous musicals, by about 1955 or 1956, that run was done. Betty Hutton didn't like how she was treated by him and the cast of "AGYG", but she apparently had a big ego too back then. An actress I met told me she toured with Keel and said he was very nice, playful like a big little kid in a big man's body,

[quote]It is often erroneously stated—by the MGM publicity department of the 1950s—that Keel's birth name was Harold Leek

I think John Raitt was hotter and I just loved his voice. Plus he took off his shirt at the end of "The Pajama Game". Yum!

Oh. [R21] What else did Betty Hutton say about him?

I always confused him with Bonnie Raitt's dad, John Raitt.

He was in one of the worst episodes of "Here's Lucy" called "Lucy's Safari" as a hunter in search of a fictional creature called a "Garboona." The "Garboona" was supposed to be a cross between a gorilla and a baboon, but was just a man in a costume.

[quote]At one time he understudied both Curley in "Oklahoma!" and Billy in "Carousel" on Broadway at the same time.

And I don't know whether it's really true but I've heard and read several times over the years that he created quite a stir by going on for both of them the same day (it was a matinee day).

Wow! That would be quite a feat!

A notable feat, but Alfred Drake and John Raitt sang their shows two times on matinee days, so it's not doing an extraordinary long amount of singing.

A total stud.

Howard photographed better than John Raitt who looked ugly on film.

Howard did a couple of films with Kathryn Grayson but something bad went down between them because when they both appeared on Ann Millet's This is Your Life episode there was an obvious antagonism.

A fine singer and a handsome man, but always so fucking stiff.

I can't find any way to really fault him, nor can I be enthusiastic about him.

Basso cantante, eh? That's interesting. I think it goes right to why he's just not very exciting.

He comes off as a very sweet man in That's Entertainment III, introducing segments as he walks through the MGM vaults. He was still incredibly handsome and healthy-looking in the 1990s.

He wrote an autobiography in his last years. I never read it but I think he talks about having a long affair with Marilyn Monroe in the early 1950s.

Didn't he appear on one of the prime-time soaps in the '80s? Dallas, maybe?

Annie Get Your Gun

Kiss Me Kate

Kismet

Rose Marie

7 Brides for 7 Brothers

A couple of Esther Williams movies

Not a bad resume in 5 years. But it sounds like he suffered a bit from the Judy Garland syndrome. MGM would only cast him in big musicals, never let him test the waters in comedies and dramas, and when musicals went out of style, he was out of work.

Now stop that, Juddeh at R7, or I'm gonna hit ya with a POT!

He's my cousin twice removed.

He was out of film work, R27. But MGM made him into an important star who could work on stage until the day he died. Not a bad fringe benefit. If he had been spending his time testing the waters, he could have ended up with a box office dud that put an early end to his association with MGM. His film career built him a resume and a brand that never tarnished.

What's the family lore on him, r29? Is your last name Leek?

He was kind to his family. Even his extended family. Didn't act like an asshole to us.

He was really a nobody when he made AGYG so I hope he wasn't too rude to Betty Hutton. But he did begin the film with Judy so I guess he had a basis for comparison.

He's quite funny in "Anything You Can Do....." and shows a great flare for comedy there. He works very well balancing Hutton's extreme efforts.

[quote] I think he's one of a minority of actors who I have never heard being slagged of his former costars.

Talk to Betty Hutton.

Considering he was a big straight handsome hunk in the midst of Ava Gardner, Lana Turner, Grace Kelly, Esther Williams and all those other horny MGM beauties, it's pretty impressive (or perhaps questionable?) that he never got involved with any of them.

R16, no need to be confused, he is one and the same.

I think Esther said she had a fling with him in her book, R35.

I believe he, Grayson and Gardner sat around drinking between takes of SHOE BOAT

r37 she used to get him off with her foot.

(Damn autocorrect) SHOW BOAT

Keel and Grayson performed together in later years

Actually, according to her book, Esther fooled around with Victor Mature, Jeff Chandler (until the polka dots episode) and her future hiusband Fernando Lamas but left Howard alone.

He dated Ava Gardner.

Read Keel's book ONLY MAKE BELIEVE. It could have used a better editor and a fact checker to be more precise with some dates and details, but overall definitely worthwhile. Keel was a lifelong Republican, but there's a lot of fun dish, especially about some of the touring in stock ladies he worked with. He went back to the stage after his MGM years, and was never really without work--or without pussy. Of course he got plenty, he was hot, extremely tall for the screen (6'3" as opposed to the 5'7" and 5'8" Astaire and Kelly), and traditionally masculine and virile in the musical theatre world where most of the guys are gay.

According to his book, he and Grayson had a brief fling (she had the biggest rack at MGM) but ended up friends/colleagues always. Not sure about any THIS IS YOUR LIFE antagonism.

He did more than musicals at MGM; 16 pictures in 6 years, and he was the leading man in nearly all of them. They kept contract players busy. Keel did smaller comedies like THREE GUYS NAMED MIKE, FAST COMPANY and CALLAWAY WENT THATAWAY and adventure films like DESPERATE SEARCH and RIDE VAQUERO.

After MGM he continued to make movies well into the 1960s, mainly budget westerns like WACO, RED TOMAHAWK, and ARIZONA BUSHWHACKERS but occasionally studio pictures like THE WAR WAGON with John Wayne, or sci-fi like THE DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS.

He was also onstage almost constantly, doing shows every year after he left MGM, sometimes Broadway but usually tent stock tours where he could make even more money per week than he'd made at the studio.

And he was well paid for his decade on television in DALLAS.

Howard and Judy (his last wife) were kind people, and Keel was always nice to fans. He never won any major awards, but he had distinct and distinguished careers in three mediums: theatre, film, and television--with a solid concert career in his later years and a decent discography made up of film sountracks, cast recordings, and his few solo albums. Not bad at all for a life in showbiz.

Here's a favorite of mine of his later appearances - on the Oscars, serenading the MGM leading ladies (he was on DALLAS at the time)

He also did CALAMITY JANE with Doris Day for Warners so that must have been a loan out from MGM. It's not a good movie: only a couple of good songs and some real clunkers. Day delivers her lines like a female Yosemite Sam.

I like Keel, but Raitt had a better voice.

Never saw that Oscar clip before. It seems like a thousand years ago......

Thank you R43, that was wonderful.

I was disappointed he was not a real redhead.

Fragrant, they are.

CALAMITY JANE is a fantastic movie, R44, are you crazy?

[quote]Ann Millet's This is Your Life

"Millet? When did I eat millet?"

The "That's Entertainment" trilogy is being shown on New Year's Eve on TCM. Begins 8 Eastern/5 Pacific.

He was still a quite fetching older man when he did Dallas, his looks didn't really fade just matured.

His claim of a fling with Kathryn Grayson is questionable spin. Word is that she was gay and still alive when his book came out so he couldn't out her.

I thought they were in Shoe Boot, R40

Very interesting, R43. It's as if we're watching "Who's That Woman?" from FOLLIES.

You really begin to see here at the DL how stars like Howard Keel and Norma Shearer, who had no scandal in their lives, are just not remembered.

Grayson and Keel did SHOW BOAT, LOVELY TO LOOK AT, and KISS ME KATE together at MGM. They also worked together on stage. I'd love to get a copy of the night time talk show (I think maybe THE TONIGHT SHOW?) where she and Keel do a duet to "I'll Never Fall in Love Again" from PROMISES, PROMISES.

Also Republican, Grayson was married twice and had one child and several grandchildren and great-grandchildren. If Grayson did, in fact, become lesbian, it was later in life. Some of her obituaries name Sally Sherman as her "longtime secretary and companion."

Esther Williams tells tales of Grayson's husband, Johnny Johnson, reading KG's graphic love letters aloud to the other men on set. Andre Previn tells about the heroic efforts MGM made to cut together Katie's "takes" into acceptable renditions of some of her more highbrow movie songs. Hugh Fordin tells about her high note in ZIEGFELD FOLLIES being dubbed.

Jane Powell still looked great in that MGM tribute

Jane Powell and Debbie Reynolds were certainly the youngest of the ladies in the MGM tribute clip. They must have been about10 years younger than the rest of them.

Of course, the Oscars aren't going to do a tribute to any stars of the 1940s/50s now, but I can't even imagine them doing a tribute to any stars of the 1970s/80s. Hollywood no longer has a past.

Yes r26 Any gossip on how he got on with other cast members? Did he gel well with Barbara Bel Geddes his onscreen wife?

Was he on Dallas during the Donna Reed kerfuffle? Does he comment about that in his bio?

That's a good point r60 I wonder if he preferred Donna Reed over Barbara Bel Geddes? Also Barbara Bel Geddes was written out of the final series because of a pay dispute? As far as I know Howard Keel did not have a pay dispute but his appearances were drastically cut in the final season probably as a direct result of his on screen wife being written out. That might have lefy him a bit miffed possibly?!

His book is on the internet Archive and it has an index.

Stop trying to make Howard Keel happen!

Howard would have been great casting for Sid in the film of The Pajama Game, certainly hunkier and handsomer than John Raitt, who was simply not photogenic. If MGM had made the film, I'd like to think Howard would have been cast opposite Judy Garland as Babe in an MGM comeback. Or was she already too far gone by then? Babe isn't really an ingenue so Judy might have been fine at that point.

Though apparently, Janis Paige in a recent interview said that Sid had first been offered to Frank Sinatra and if he had accepted, she was told she would be cast opposite him (she created the role of Babe onstage). But when Sinatra turned it down, they went to Doris Day for Babe and then felt confident casting most of the other Broadway cast opposite her.

I agree with the thread title, OP!

R1, R2 and R3: That picture is not from the English drama Keel did in '48, which was called The Hideout (original title The Small Voice). It's from a later picture called Floods of Fear (1958). There are several copies on Youtube, but they're all poor quality except one, which is dubbed in German. Drat! I may watch it in German just to enjoy Keel. He seems to be shirtless through nearly the entire movie. Here's another sample.

Keel was a fine-looking man, not in the shape an actor today would be, but tall and athletic-looking ... and that hairy chest!

Here's Keel again from the same movie, not shirtless but looking handsome and sexy af. Apparently, he plays a criminal, which must have been an interesting change of pace from his musical career.

Didn't one of his leading ladies accuse him of having bad breath? Or was that Gordon McRae who was the one accused?

r67 You may be thinking of Clark Gable.