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 Gone with the Wind most often refers to: * ''Gone with the Wind'' (novel), a 1936 novel by Margaret Mitchell * ''Gone with the Wind'' (film), the 1939 adaptation of the novel Gone with the Wind may also refer to: Music * ''Gone with the Wind'' ...

''.

Early life

Evelyn Keyes was born in Port Arthur, Texas, to Omar Dow Keyes and Maude Ollive Keyes, the daughter of a

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's b ...

minister. After Omar Keyes died when she was three years old, Keyes moved with her mother to

Atlanta, Georgia Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

, 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 The United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) is an American neo-Confederate hereditary association for female descendants of Confederate Civil War soldiers engaging in the commemoration of these ancestors, the funding of monuments to them, ...

Film career

A chorus girl by age 18, Keyes came out to Hollywood and was introduced to

Cecil B. DeMille Cecil Blount DeMille (; August 12, 1881January 21, 1959) was an American film director, producer and actor. Between 1914 and 1958, he made 70 features, both silent and sound films. He is acknowledged as a founding father of the American cine ...

who in her own words “signed me to a personal contract without even making a test”. After a handful of B movies at Paramount Pictures, she landed a minor role in ''

'' (1939), that of

Scarlett O'Hara Katie Scarlett O'Hara Hamilton Kennedy Butler is a fictional character and the protagonist in Margaret Mitchell's 1936 novel ''Gone with the Wind'' and in the 1939 film of the same name, where she is portrayed by Vivien Leigh. She also is the ...

's sister Suellen. (She was later interviewed for the 1988 documentary '' The Making of a Legend: Gone with the Wind''.)

Columbia Pictures Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production studio that is a member of the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, a division of Sony Pictures Entertainment, which is one of the Big Five studios and a subsidiary of the mu ...

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 Samuel Lawrence Klausman Parks (December 13, 1914 – April 13, 1975) was an American stage and film actor. His career arced from bit player and supporting roles to top billing, before it was virtually ended when he admitted to having once been ...

in Columbia's blockbuster hit ''

The Jolson Story ''The Jolson Story'' is a 1946 American musical biography film which purports to tell the life story of singer Al Jolson. It stars Larry Parks as Jolson, Evelyn Keyes as Julie Benson (approximating Jolson's wife, Ruby Keeler), William Demares ...

'' (1946). She followed this up with an enjoyable minor screwball comedy, ''

The Mating of Millie ''The Mating of Millie'' is a 1948 American romantic comedy film directed by Henry Levin (film director), Henry Levin and starring Glenn Ford and Evelyn Keyes. Plot Millie McGonigle (Evelyn Keyes), is riding a bus home from work when the frustr ...

'', with

Glenn Ford Gwyllyn Samuel Newton "Glenn" Ford (May 1, 1916 – August 30, 2006) was a Canadian-American actor who often portrayed ordinary men in unusual circumstances. Ford was most prominent during Classical Hollywood cinema, Hollywood's Golden Age as ...

. She was then in a 1949 role as Kathy Flannigan in '' Mrs. Mike''. Keyes' last role in a major film was a small part as

Tom Ewell Tom Ewell (born Samuel Yewell Tompkins, April 29, 1909 – September 12, 1994) was an American film, stage and television actor, and producer. His most successful and most identifiable role was that of Richard Sherman in ''The Seven Year Itch'' ...

's vacationing wife in ''

The Seven Year Itch ''The Seven Year Itch'' is a 1955 American romantic comedy film directed by Billy Wilder, from a screenplay he co-wrote with George Axelrod from the 1952 three-act play. The film stars Marilyn Monroe and Tom Ewell, who reprised his stage role. ...

'' (1955), which starred

Marilyn Monroe Marilyn Monroe (; born Norma Jeane Mortenson; 1 June 1926 4 August 1962) was an American actress. Famous for playing comedic " blonde bombshell" characters, she became one of the most popular sex symbols of the 1950s and early 1960s, as wel ...

. 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 John Marcellus Huston ( ; August 5, 1906 – August 28, 1987) was an American film director, screenwriter, actor and visual artist. He wrote the screenplays for most of the 37 feature films he directed, many of which are today considered ...

(23 July 1946 – February 1950), and bandleader

Artie Shaw Artie Shaw (born Arthur Jacob Arshawsky; May 23, 1910 – December 30, 2004) was an American clarinetist, composer, bandleader, actor and author of both fiction and non-fiction. Widely regarded as "one of jazz's finest clarinetists", Shaw led ...

(1957–1985). Keyes said of her many love affairs: "I always took up with the man of the moment and there were many such moments." While married to Huston, the couple adopted a Mexican child, Pablo, whom Huston had discovered while filming on location in Mexico for '' 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. 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 ''

'' was to begin filming, as the experience left her unable to have children. Among her many love affairs in Hollywood she recounted in ''Scarlett O'Hara's Younger Sister'', were those with film producer Michael Todd (who left Evelyn for

Elizabeth Taylor Dame Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor (February 27, 1932 – March 23, 2011) was a British-American actress. She began her career as a child actress in the early 1940s and was one of the most popular stars of classical Hollywood cinema in the 1950s. ...

), actors

Sterling Hayden Sterling Walter Hayden (born Sterling Relyea Walter; March 26, 1916 – May 23, 1986) was an American actor, author, sailor and decorated Marine Corps officer and an Office of Strategic Services' agent during World War II. A leading man for mos ...

, Dick Powell,

Anthony Quinn Manuel Antonio Rodolfo Quinn Oaxaca (April 21, 1915 – June 3, 2001), known professionally as Anthony Quinn, was a Mexican-American actor. He was known for his portrayal of earthy, passionate characters "marked by a brutal and elemental v ...

David Niven James David Graham Niven (; 1 March 1910 – 29 July 1983) was a British actor, soldier, memoirist, and novelist. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance as Major Pollock in '' Separate Tables'' (1958). Niven's other roles ...

and Kirk Douglas. She had to regularly fend off

studio head Harry Cohn's advances during her career at the studio. Keyes died on July 4, 2008 from uterine cancer at the Pepper Estates in Montecito, California. She was 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.

Filmography

:''Excluding appearances as herself.''

Film

Television

Bibliography

* * *

References

External links

Evelyn Keyes, Actress in 'Gone with the Wind' dies at 91

* *

by

Ned Scott Ned Scott (April 16, 1907 – November 24, 1964) was an American photographer who worked in the Hollywood film industry as a still photographer from 1935–1948. As a member of the Camera Club of New York from 1930–34, he was heavily influ ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Keyes, Evelyn 1916 births 2008 deaths Methodists from Georgia (U.S. state) American film actresses Deaths from cancer in California People with Alzheimer's disease Deaths from uterine cancer People from Port Arthur, Texas People from Greater Los Angeles Actresses from Texas Actresses from Georgia (U.S. state) Actresses from Atlanta 20th-century American actresses Columbia Pictures contract players Huston family California Democrats Georgia (U.S. state) Democrats Texas Democrats People from Montecito, California